Ponte Vedra Beach residents who have been battling drainage and flooding issues got some good news recently.
During a recent Ponte Vedra Municipal Service District meeting, trustee Mickey White informed the committee and the residents that they have the “green light” now to convince the county to draw plans and go fix the locations that suffer from the worst drainage issues.
According to White, no one can amend storm water coming in and out of the lagoons without the consent of St. Johns County, and the result of that has been the county trying to figure out in recent years how to figure out a solution to help the resolve the flooding issues by discharging storm water from the lagoons while still meeting the St. Johns River Water Management and Florida Department of Environmental Protection policy in place.
“What that has to do with us, is that we happen to live in a very old community with rotten storm water pipes in a lot of locations, so we have kind of mish mash of failing drainage systems within those parts,” White said.
White stated that he wants to see the person in charge of reviewing and helping decide what position the county takes on possible improvements and restoration of pipes to be extremely liberal in their determinations.
Especially, when it comes to the pipes up and down Ponte Vedra Boulevard and on San Juan Drive where intermittent flooding typically takes place in people’s front yards.
“In those areas where we have existing outfalls, the state and the water management district are going to work with us to allow and permit amending those to make a modern (approach),” White said. “With my position on the MSD, I’m trying to advocate for as much of that as possible, because it’s the reason that in a one-inch rain, we’re having such huge backups.”
Part of the advocation process includes White representing the MSD and working closely with an engineer that the county has hired to go through the feasibility study.
White has been working on coordinating a meeting with the group of engineers to make sure that they are identifying the right problems and areas, which they may not initially be aware of if they do not live in the MSD.
He has a vested interest because not only was he elected to be an MSD trustee and look out for the best interests of the community, but he is also one of the many residents who have been affected firsthand from flooding in their neighborhoods.
“I have cars driving through flooding on my street and getting stalled out in the middle of rainstorms, and that’s something I hope to tackle,” White said. “We’ve gotten some good news that gives us the ability to do that.”
