Restoration

The Florida Legislature passed a law in 1987 called the Surface Water Improvement and Management (SWIM) Act, which directed the St. Johns River Water Management District to conduct the necessary research to gain an understanding of what is needed to restore and properly manage the river. Over the past two decades, the scientists and engineers of District’s Lower St. Johns River Basin Program have conducted a vast amount of research into the river and its ecology and have moved forward on numerous projects to improve the river’s health.

While the District has continued to build on its efforts to improve this impaired water body, no single entity can solve all the river’s problems, just as no one entity created the problems.

Within the past decade, the District has been a leader in the development of two notable partnership initiatives to restore the river to health — the 1998–2003 River Agenda and the 2006 River Accord partnerships.

The River Agenda

The River Agenda Booklet

In 1997 individuals from the northeastern area of Florida representing business, government and the environment made a pledge to restore and enhance the lower St. Johns River by outlining a five-year plan known as the River Agenda. This group of individuals began working toward six goals established to protect this vital resource and, in large part, successfully accelerated the restoration of the lower St. Johns River.

The St. Johns District worked with elected officials and community leaders to develop a Lower St. Johns River Basin Restoration Plan, allocating $43.2 million to reduce pollution from urban and suburban areas, to rehabilitate degraded aquatic habitats and to reduce pollution from agricultural areas.

Over the years, the effort netted $47.45 million in matching dollars for improvements to the lower St. Johns River. Leveraging these dollars more than doubled the state’s investment with local sources.

Through the efforts of numerous government and agency partners, River Agenda successes included the following:

  • Completing a state-of-the-art water quality model that is enabling stakeholders to have a significantly better understanding of river processes, which has led to a well-found nutrient load reduction goal
  • Establishing a nutrient total maximum daily load for the lower basin
  • Reducing nitrogen from point source discharges to the river by 1,687 pounds per day
  • Reducing nitrogen from entering the river by 148 pounds per day and phosphorus by 10 pounds per day through agricultural best management practices
  • Reducing nitrogen through urban stormwater treatment by 211 pounds per day and phosphorus by 74 pounds per day
  • Identifying 24 areas of septic tank failure in Jacksonville and leveraging $100 million for extension of sewer lines
  • Expanding stormwater inspections
  • Reducing sedimentation by stabilizing more than 16 miles of unpaved roads and poorly constructed rights-of-way along Black Creek in Clay County
  • Developing a coordinated effort to monitor bacteria in surface waters and improving communication among agencies

Though the five-year initiative expired in 2003, work by the partner groups continued, and a new agreement was forged in July 2006.

The River Accord

The River Accord

A $700 million river restoration partnership called the River Accord was signed in July 2006 by the District, the city of Jacksonville, JEA, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and other local government partners.

In the River Accord, the District agreed to fund up to $150 million over the next decade on cost-share projects to remove wastewater discharges from the river and to redirect treated water to other purposes, such as landscape irrigation or cooling water for industrial uses. Local governments and utilities will share in the funding of projects benefiting their constituencies.

Redirecting the disposal of wastewater and recognizing reclaimed water as a commodity will not only improve the river’s ecological health but will protect and further extend Florida’s precious water supply. Coupled with maximizing wastewater reuse, phasing out discharges will help to offset future water supply needs and assist in providing for sustainable growth in northeast Florida.

However, few areas in the lower basin currently have the infrastructure in place to support reuse of reclaimed water.

Through cooperative efforts, more than 20 reclaimed water projects and two wastewater plant upgrade projects are expected to begin or be completed by the end of 2012. These projects are intended to remove nitrogen discharges from the river, which helps to improve water quality in the Lower St. Johns River Basin. At the same time, they will make reclaimed water available for irrigation, which will expand existing drinking water supplies.

When these reclaimed water projects are implemented, they will remove 1.6 million pounds of nitrogen per year and remove 31 million gallons per day of discharge through beneficial wastewater reuse.

In addition to the wastewater reduction and reuse initiative, River Accord partners will

  • Identify failing septic systems and connect those homes into central sewer systems
  • Upgrade wastewater treatment plants
  • Improve the treatment of stormwater runoff

These combined efforts will bring nutrient loading well below state and federal standards and will provide more than 60 million gallons of reuse over 15 years.