SHELLY
SoWal Insider
St. Joe Co. fined again for RiverTown water violations
Lots of land was cleared for housing that didn't develop; then came runoff
The developer of RiverTown in St. Johns County is being fined for the third time in 13 months for letting silt and mud pour into creeks.
The St. Johns River Water Management District’s governing board said Tuesday the St. Joe Co., one of the state’s largest landowners, should pay $16,105 in fines and costs. Members debated whether the amount was high enough and finally decided to warn the company that any new trouble would be punished more severely.
A management district inspector reported in August that mud and silt from the 4,170-acre development along Florida 13 was pouring into Kendall Creek and Orange Grove Branch, which both flow into the St. Johns River.
Land had been cleared for more roads and lots than construction crews could control, an agency administrator said.
“At the end of the day, I think we were pretty convinced that RiverTown was doing their best to manage the situation. And because of their having cleared so much land, it became an almost impossible job,” said Dale Lovell , a management district compliance manager in Jacksonville.
Runoff from the project made the creeks three to five times cloudier than state law allows, a management district report said.
Sediment in creeks can cover and kill underwater plants and animals.
An activist whose group reported the problem said St. Joe should have been fined more.
“We were told this was going to be an environmentally sensitive community and this is not going to be like any of these other developments,” said St. Johns Riverkeeper Neil Armingeon. “As it turns out, it’s exactly like the other developments.
“They go in, they clear-cut thousands of acres and they don’t control this runoff. … What’s the incentive for St. Joe to do the right thing? There is no incentive.”
Lovell said the management district is also requiring St. Joe to take extra steps to reduce runoff. He said that’s more important than collecting fines.
Jerry Ray, a St. Joe spokesman and senior vice president, said a lot of the ground cleared was because of construction of a county road. The amount of land cleared for buildings “was appropriate with market absorption projections at the time,” Ray wrote by e-mail.
By the last quarter of 2008, St. Joe reported just 30 home sites sold, out of a planned 4,500, and Ray wrote that “sales have not met our expectations.”
Runoff problems were made worse by the collapse of part of a bridge to carry an unfinished road over a creek, Lovell said. A 100-foot-long, 12-foot-high retaining wall on a section of one road collapsed and spilled sediment, he said.
Lovell said removing the sediment was delayed because of a lawsuit about the collapsed wall, but Ray said his company isn’t involved in any suit about that.
St. Joe has been talking with county officials about better ways to handle runoff from storms, Ray wrote.
In an October letter, a St. Joe manager described steps to fix the problem and told the management district the company had been carefully about managing runoff all along.
“This attention to detail has resulted in minimal erosion issues over the past two years of construction,” the director of development, Michael J. Yuro, wrote.
But at that point, the company had already been told twice to control RiverTown’s runoff better.
The first time, in February 2008, the company was ordered to pay about $45,000 to the management district and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. That started with problems during a rainy period in 2007, Lovell said.
Four months later, St. Joe was told to pay about $10,500 over problems that Lovell said started because sediment was running off of land cleared for a large athletic field.
Lots of land was cleared for housing that didn't develop; then came runoff
The developer of RiverTown in St. Johns County is being fined for the third time in 13 months for letting silt and mud pour into creeks.
The St. Johns River Water Management District’s governing board said Tuesday the St. Joe Co., one of the state’s largest landowners, should pay $16,105 in fines and costs. Members debated whether the amount was high enough and finally decided to warn the company that any new trouble would be punished more severely.
A management district inspector reported in August that mud and silt from the 4,170-acre development along Florida 13 was pouring into Kendall Creek and Orange Grove Branch, which both flow into the St. Johns River.
Land had been cleared for more roads and lots than construction crews could control, an agency administrator said.
“At the end of the day, I think we were pretty convinced that RiverTown was doing their best to manage the situation. And because of their having cleared so much land, it became an almost impossible job,” said Dale Lovell , a management district compliance manager in Jacksonville.
Runoff from the project made the creeks three to five times cloudier than state law allows, a management district report said.
Sediment in creeks can cover and kill underwater plants and animals.
An activist whose group reported the problem said St. Joe should have been fined more.
“We were told this was going to be an environmentally sensitive community and this is not going to be like any of these other developments,” said St. Johns Riverkeeper Neil Armingeon. “As it turns out, it’s exactly like the other developments.
“They go in, they clear-cut thousands of acres and they don’t control this runoff. … What’s the incentive for St. Joe to do the right thing? There is no incentive.”
Lovell said the management district is also requiring St. Joe to take extra steps to reduce runoff. He said that’s more important than collecting fines.
Jerry Ray, a St. Joe spokesman and senior vice president, said a lot of the ground cleared was because of construction of a county road. The amount of land cleared for buildings “was appropriate with market absorption projections at the time,” Ray wrote by e-mail.
By the last quarter of 2008, St. Joe reported just 30 home sites sold, out of a planned 4,500, and Ray wrote that “sales have not met our expectations.”
Runoff problems were made worse by the collapse of part of a bridge to carry an unfinished road over a creek, Lovell said. A 100-foot-long, 12-foot-high retaining wall on a section of one road collapsed and spilled sediment, he said.
Lovell said removing the sediment was delayed because of a lawsuit about the collapsed wall, but Ray said his company isn’t involved in any suit about that.
St. Joe has been talking with county officials about better ways to handle runoff from storms, Ray wrote.
In an October letter, a St. Joe manager described steps to fix the problem and told the management district the company had been carefully about managing runoff all along.
“This attention to detail has resulted in minimal erosion issues over the past two years of construction,” the director of development, Michael J. Yuro, wrote.
But at that point, the company had already been told twice to control RiverTown’s runoff better.
The first time, in February 2008, the company was ordered to pay about $45,000 to the management district and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. That started with problems during a rainy period in 2007, Lovell said.
Four months later, St. Joe was told to pay about $10,500 over problems that Lovell said started because sediment was running off of land cleared for a large athletic field.
- in midday killing 10, 348, er, a few peoples. One was a young girl with a baby. Along come the lawsuits.