County addressing local flooding in Watershed Plan
Lee County officials recently hosted a workshop to present a long-range Watershed Plan, with one key concern being flooding that could have a serious effect on fire and rescue efforts in the Bayshore area.
“The county is trying to develop a plan to alleviate flooding in our area,” said Bayshore Fire & Rescue District Chief Larry Nisbet. “The plan will help in terms of the roads which will maintain our ability to access persons in case of emergency.”
Late this summer, one to two feet of water flooded areas north of Nalle Grade Road. “Some roads became impassible for emergency vehicles.”
Many of those private roads are used for public access.
The Watershed Plan tracks the movement of water from Charlotte County to the Caloosahatchee. It includes all of the North Fort Myers area, including U.S. 41 to just east of Highway 31, he said.
“They (the county) are looking at how water moves north to south, and how construction in the area has grown and will continue to grow in that area.”
Nisbet and Lee County Commission Chairwoman Tammy Hall each said the plan is still in developmental stages, with the workshop held to gather local input.
“What I liked about the meeting is that after an overview it broke out into focus groups for individual questions about individual areas,” Nisbet said.
One project that is going on now is on the northwest corner of Nalle Road and Nalle Grade.
There will be more workshops in the future, said Hall, and additional input.
“We submitted the plan to SWFL Water Management to get their comments and reviews on it,” Hall said. “They are the primary permitting entity, and will look at the comprehensive approach we are taking in North Fort Myers. Once we get their comments, we will will look at their improvements to the plan, and the next step would be to prioritize projects.”
Conservation 20/20 projects also are on the priority list, according to Roland Ottolini, director of the Lee County Natural Resources Division.
“Our priority would be to look at the main creeks and streams and look for major impediments of flow, because if these main creeks and streams are blocked or impeded they will restrict the ability of neighborhoods to drain properly.”
The next major step will be finding funding.
“We have other funding for culvert replacement and possible grant funding,” he said. “We would look at the areas most prone to flooding – areas we established early on, road and house flooding.”
The area from U.S. 41 to 31 is a large project, he said. “We’ve had some projects we will be implementing now, including the northwest corner of Nalle Road and Nalle Grade.”
The plan has been several years in the making, with detailed study and detailed survey information. “We had a consulting engineering firm that worked on the project, as well as in-house experts. A lot of it was triggered by frequent flooding issues, trying to come up with a reasonable approach to a flood plan.”
Many of the county’s 20/20 Conservation projects are in the North Fort Myers area. “We are utilizing a 20/20 purchase to help. Several land acquisition purchases help with the mission.”
Popash Creek Preserve is one. Popash Creek Preserve is a 307.5 acre preserve managed by Lee County’s Conservation 20/20. The Preserve is located northwest of the intersection of Nalle Grade Road and Nalle Road in North Fort Myers.
The project goals include the hydrological restoration and enhancement for the preserve as well as providing water quality and flood protection for the basin, Ottolini said. Goals are to restore the historic flow back into the creek, increase water stage times and surface water storage to help provide flood protection.
Other goals include improving water quality for wildlife and park activities at the preserve.
“For Popach, we did a separate design and are getting ready to start construction. We are creating a separate floodway and retention facility for water quality treatment and storage of flood water.”
From there, other work will be done to prioritize projects. “We’ll put them in a reasonable,logical sequence and proceed with construction projects for those.”
An example of a future community input project would be Yellow Fever Creek. said Ottolini.
“For Yellow Fever Creek, we would meet individuals from there and in workshops.”
Other projects will include railway areas.
“Typical impediments are railways crossings where pipes are too small causing basically flooding on the upstream side.”
“We want to make sure people are getting informed we are very excited about a plan to be used as a basis to provide for the relief of flooding, environmental improvements and dealing with our water quality,” Hall said.
To learn more specifics on the plan, Hall suggests going to the county website, and getting on her e-mail list to learn about future workshops. To sign up for the list, e-mail dist4@leegov.com or call 533-2226.