The Alachua County Commission (BoCC), at their rescheduled meeting, approved a recommendation by the Alachua County Environmental Protection Department (ACEPD) to petition the SRWMD's approval of the WMSC ERP application. (background info at bottom of message) The ACDEP asked to have this item added to the agenda – Chris Bird said that the general permit was a "boiler plate", a "copy & paste", and he hadn't expected the permit to come so fast. - He recommended that the BoCC send a letter, as soon as possible, to the SRWMD requesting that the proposed SRWMD WMSC stormwater permit incorporate additional conditions in order to safeguard water and biological quality of the Floridian aquifer and the Mill Creek-Santa Fe Springs systems. - If SRWMD is not receptive to incorporating their recommendations into the proposed permit, staff recommends that the BoCC authorize the County atty to formally request an administrative hearing by June 27, 2006 filing deadline. - BoCC authorization is also requested to allow staff to participate in the City of Alachua's site development process on the proposed WMSC to convey to the city the importance of incorporating these safeguards into the site plan approval. Chris said that the county should ask WM to be a model of the growth that is coming in I-75/441 corridor. + Byerly made a motion to support staff's recommendations. "Send letter today." - Delaney seconded. - Atty said probably no action taken in response to the letter; file letter for administrative hearing. Maybe should not ask for these conditions to be instituted on the permit, but ask why weren't they in the permit. Why didn't they do a special permit? Why that wasn't put in place. It will be fairly intensive, but he is willing to proceed to develop a product that "we can face ourselves in the mirror every day."
+ Delaney supported moving forward; "I think it's important to keep them on their toes." Okay for different governments within same district to challenge... + Pinkoson asked Mr. Michael New, City of Alachua's Public Services Director, to look at item and take it to your city...how can we work together. - M New responded that WM had not yet submitted an application to the city (City of Alachua officials have repeatedly been quoted in the paper as saying there is no reason for a discussion, because a permit has not been submitted yet), and ACEPD hasn't had any conversation with city. - EPD spokeswoman said that they had copied Alachua on all e-mail, late march early april, to SRWMD and had affirmed that they wanted to have a conversation. + County Atty – WM has not filed permit; way usually done: Permit filed, first-step meeting with planning dept and neighborhood workshop deal with these issues. First Street Group (developers that own the proposed site) have recently challenged neighborhood workshops and large-scale retail regulations that are in the city's Land Use Regulations (LDRs))
- File petition to get leverage. Citizens at public comment: - Buford Pruitt – National Speleological Society – said that the SRWMD had not done their job. - Faye Baird – Santa Fe Springs Working Commission – Surprised there were no special requirements given in permit...she works with people whose lives and incomes count on those water bodies. - Cave-diver society representative - Rob Binkman – mentioned the Universal karst study that had been done for WM, but WM had withheld the information in the study that addressed concern for the area around the proposed supercenter site. - FDOT environmental spokesperson supported Chris' argument and spoke of the environmental hazard of a WMSC parking lot. He said that Alachua Farm and Lumber (locally owned store) carry their materials to your car – less chance of dropping and spilling a bag of fertilizer, etc. + Byerly made motion; Delaney seconded; - Pinkoson - Chris are you trying for the ultimate objective here? - Chris – These are the best management practice standards for FL - Motion is passed. Please e-mail your county commissioners and applaud their uprightness in taking on this task. bocc@alachua.fl.us Best Wishes and Happy Summer Solstice! Jeannette Hinsdale p.s. if you would like to be removed from this list or are receiving duplicate e-mails, please let me know. Background Information and Concerns -- Dye studies completed in the summer of 2005 show conclusively that water from Mill Creek Sink flows to Hornsby Spring on the Santa Fe River through the Mill Creek cave system, as well as Darby Spring and the Camp Kulaqua water well. The travel time was as short as 12 days, or about 1/2 mile per day.
-- There are numerous private water wells between the proposed Wal-Mart site and Hornsby Spring.
-- Hornsby Spring is a privately owned first magnitude spring that flows into the Santa Fe River. The River is designated as an Outstanding Florida Water.
-- Test borings submitted with the ERP application show that (like many sites in this part of Alachua County) the proposed Wal-Mart site is prone to sinkhole formation.
-- It is not clear that anything can be done to assure that the large-scale excavation required to build the dry retention ponds will not cause physical harm to the mapped cave system or collapse unmapped conduits under the site.
-- If the cave conduits are collapsed, it is unknown where water flow from Mill Creek would go, but significant flooding of the area around the I-75 interchange is possible and/or injection of water directly into the aquifer as it backs up in Mill Creek.
-- It is not clear that anything can be done to assure that stormwater runoff from the proposed Wal-Mart site can be kept out of the cave system under all circumstances. Recent rainfall events associated with hurricanes (e.g., 20 inches per 2 weeks in Sept 2004) have been larger than the rainfall rates typically used to engineer stormwater treatment systems.
-- The DOT stormwater management system at the I-75 interchange was built before current water quality regulations were passed. Overflow from the proposed Wal-Mart site would be directed into this system, which directly discharges back into the Mill Creek floodplain without water quality treatment. --The entire I-75 interchange is in need of a stormwater master plan and retrofit that gives better protection to Mill Creek, Mill Creek Sink, local groundwater, and the cave system that flows to Hornsby Spring and the Santa Fe River. | 
