Airport Dumps Tons of Mud in Estuary

Four-thousand acres of deep swampland, donated by the St. Joe Development Company for the construction of an international airport, is situated at the bottom of an 80,000 acre bowl and was, pre-construction, remarkable for hundreds of acres of deep cypress swamps, high ground-water, abundant wetlands, and crystal clear streams which slowly fed two sandy-bottomed creeks that eventually opened into West Bay. To date, 5.7 million cubic yards of fill have been placed over these wetlands and streams. In addition, a crosswind runway will require approximately one million cubic yards of fill dirt.

Since the land clearing began in January 2008, rain events, large and small, have created a deluge of mud and standing water on the airport site. The 80,000 acres above the airport still releases a tremendous amount of water through the airport site, but instead of being absorbed by thousands of acres of wetlands, the water now finds an impervious runway and an inadequate stormwater treatment system. The 7,200 linear feet of slow-moving winding streams are now paved over and the groundwater no longer flows evenly through the cleansing soils. The water rushes over the newly filled and graded land and carries tons of mud to Crooked Creek and Burnt Mill Creek which, as expected, are discharging rivers of mud into the highly productive fish-nursery marshes of West Bay.

Onsite workers have told the Clean Water Network of Florida (CWN-FL) that the contractor who is building the airport is diverting the water on and around the runway to Crooked Creek with a 24-inch pipe. Aerial photos of the site (attached) bear this out. Any discharge to surface waters is prohibited by the general permit that the Airport Authority is utilizing and no permit for a discharge has been granted for the pipe.

The Airport Authority and St. Joe have announced plans to fill thousands of more acres around the airport for commercial and residential development. The company essentially owns the entire watershed for West Bay and needed the airport as a means to get publicly funded infrastructure into the watershed, which is very wet and had few paved roads and no water, sewer, power or other infrastructure.

At its meeting last week, the Bay County Airport Authority discussed how they could get USD400,000.00 to construct two large canals from the site to nearby creeks to keep the site drained. The FAA rules do not allow standing water near airports because the water attracts wildlife (especially birds), which are a hazard to planes.