Public wades into plans for Flagler wetland project

FLAGLER BEACH — Residents and other stakeholders crowded into Flagler Beach City Hall on Thursday night to share their opinions and learn more about a wetland restoration project planned for 113 acres just outside the city limits.

Representatives of the St. Johns River Water Management District and partner agencies were on hand to answer questions and record specific concerns during the two-hour community meeting.

“We want to hear all the different angles,” said Adam Lovejoy, government affairs manager for the district.

Representatives of the district and other agencies were stationed at tables around the room so that they could speak one-on-one with people in attendance. Three tables were devoted to project maps upon which visitor's concerns could be noted.

“The idea is to go back to our professionals and figure out what accommodations can be made,” Lovejoy said.

Any resulting adjustments to the plan will be discussed at a second public workshop on Nov. 7, and the feedback will be presented to the district’s governing board at its Dec. 11 meeting.

[READ: Water district to try compromise with opponents to Flagler Beach marsh restoration]

The project has drawn criticism from people who live near the area targeted for restoration as well as nature lovers and business owners who make their living from the ecosystem as it currently exists.

Even after Thursday's presentation, some remained skeptical of the project’s value and are concerned about its impact.

“I believe that they need to do a lot more research,” said Elizabeth Hathaway, who with her husband, Matt, lives close to the project area. “They need to slow down. They need to study the area. They need to remap the area.”

Project goal

The goal of the $541,000 project is to restore wetlands on state property across the Intracoastal Waterway from the Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area at Flagler Beach.

The site is scored by miles of dragline ditches dug in the 1950s and thereafter as a means of pest control. The deep ditches effectively disrupt the lifecycle of the saltmarsh mosquito. But aerial photographs taken since the 1990s show erosion is widening the ditches, according to Erich Marzolf, director of the district’s Division of Water and Land Resources.

“We’re getting to a situation where the environment out there is just ditch or spoil pile, and the area of wetland — that strip that’s at the right elevation — is diminishing,” he said.

Workers would grade the spoil piles to the level of the surrounding wetland, moving the spoil material into the ditches and causing them to become shallower.

While the project area is 113 acres, not all of that will be affected.

“There are certain parts we won’t touch,” Marzolf said. “If there’s a natural upland out there, we’re not going to touch it. If there’s a natural stream or channel there that’s not a ditch, we’re not touching it.”

The project would provide critical habitat for crabs, shrimp and young fish, he said.

“This will reduce the access that predators have by reducing the ditches, so the young have a bigger, better place to avoid those predators,” he said.

In addition, the project will reduce levels of chlorophyll, which can result in excess algae. That’s because the wetland would assimilate nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus that promote chlorophyll, he explained.

The wetland essentially acts as a kind of kidney for the ecosystem.

“We’re trying to build bigger kidneys,” Marzolf said.

However, Todd Mosteller, vice president of the Florida Water Quality Association, said the chlorophyll would still increase because the water doesn’t flow in that area. He recommended creation of artesian wells to get the water flowing.

Project precursors

In 1999, the district launched a pilot project to restore impacted wetlands in Mosquito Lagoon south of Edgewater.

Then, beginning in 2003, the district began restoration of more than 625 acres of wetland marked by dragline ditches in Volusia County.Work was done at North Peninsula, Tomoka and Bulow state parks before the project’s amphibious excavator wore out in 2015.

Volusia County declined to fund the purchase of new equipment, according to district environmental scientist Ron Brockmeyer. In 2017, the district identified the project site in Flagler County to support a request for extension of a key federal grant.

An invitation to bid was issued in June and the project was awarded in August to Perry Construction of Micanopy, Florida.

In addition to the $316,000 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service grant, the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is contributing $100,000, the state Department of Environmental Protection is contributing $25,000 and the district is providing a $100,000 match.

Public opposition

On Sept. 11, about 50 opponents of the project attended a district governing board meeting in Palatka. At least 22 of them spoke, many requesting the project be delayed or abandoned.

Opponents also spoke during a presentation before the Flagler County Commission on Sept. 17. At that time, district representatives announced the pair of public workshops, the first of which was Thursday.

[SEE: Water district officials discuss Flagler marsh project]

On Monday, county commissioners weighed in during their regular meeting, with Commission Chair Greg Hansen reminding the public that the board does not have a say in the project.

Commissioner David Sullivan said he toured the area by boat and called it “gorgeous.”

“My personal view is if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” he said.

Commissioner Donald O’Brien added that “it’s almost like it’s a solution in search of a problem.”

Among those at Thursday's meeting was Mike Sullivan, who farms shellfish and owns The Commander’s Shellfish Camp in Crescent Beach. He had sued the district and Volusia County in 2013 over work in Mosquito Lagoon, which he blamed for the destruction of his clam beds.

“I was selling 50,000 clams a week at Disney resorts,” he said. “I was doing over $500,000 a year in sales and doubling yearly, growing like crazy. They came in and destroyed the water quality, and I lost 8 million clams three years in a row until I quit.”

The judge in that case ruled against him in 2016, but he attended Thursday’s meeting out of concern for the shellfish he harvests for his current business.

[READ: shellfish farmer loses lawsuit over wetland restoration]

Fishing guide Rob Ottlein estimated that the project would cost him about 25 percent of his business.

“I think it’s a disgrace,” he said. “I think it’s all about money. I think they have this money, and they want to spend it, and they don’t care what the people think.”

Betty Ledyard, who with her husband owns 26 acres near the project area, said she would be “fully onboard” if the research was done showing that it was a declining estuary.

Hathaway said she didn’t like the format of Thursday’s meeting, which she said was confusing and required a lot of standing — something she said was hard on older visitors. She said she would have liked to see the district team at the front of the room answering questions from the audience.

As it is, she said, “I did not learn any new information as a result of this meeting.”

She expressed concern that the project would destroy the nearby mangroves, making her home more vulnerable to flooding should another hurricane hit.

Some residents also were concerned that the project would stir up DDT from the silt, but Mark Positano, director of the East Flagler Mosquito Control District, said it was very unlikely that DDT would have ever been used in that particular area.

Not everyone attending Thursday’s meeting opposed the project, however. Chris Farrell of Audubon Florida said it has the potential to be “very successful.”

“We’re experiencing a lot of problems with birds in Florida,” he said. “Wading birds, shore birds are declining. A certain number of birds use the habitat as it is, so people see it and think: 'Birds use this habitat – why destroy it?' But it’s a fraction of what use to use these areas.”

The project is expected to take about a year to complete, though no start date has been announced.

People can follow the progress of the project at sjrwmd.com/facts/flagler-wetland-restoration-project and send questions to Flaglerrestoration@sjrwmd.com

The next public workshop, also planned for Flagler Beach City Hall, is set for 5:30 p.m. Nov. 7.