Stormwater director provides update to County Commission on various issues
Sarasota County Stormwater Department Director Ben Quartermaine told the Sarasota County Commission this week that neither staff of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) nor representatives of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) had identified any “outstanding issues” in regard to the county plans for Phase 2 of the Phillippi Creek dredging project.
That initiative remains on schedule, he said during the board’s regular meeting on Aug. 25 in Sarasota. “We intend to bid the project in mid-September and award the project by the end of the year.”
He reminded the commissioners that staff needs permits from both FDEP and the USACE to undertake what has been characterized as “the maximum allowable dredge” of Phillippi Creek between U.S. 41 and South Beneva Road. However, Quartermaine noted, the USACE “is the major permitting arm.”
He and his staff are using a consulting firm, Brightwater Solutions in St. Petersburg, which “has helped us in the past in terms of just making sure that … permitting goes smoothly, but also that the Corps understands that this is a safety issue and that we really need to have the permit resolved.”
During the board’s regular meeting on March 3, Quartermaine said that Phase 2 effectively will restore the creek to its status of the early 2000s by “removing 25 years of sediment.”
However, he noted that day, “As we went through the permitting process” for the work in the creek, “it became apparent that there was going to be a longer process with the [USACE for Phase 2],” as the permitting includes a focus on the ecological functions of the creek, including the presence of seagrasses and oyster beds, along with other habitat — issues that were not part of the Phase 1 initiative.
Subsequently, in a June 9 memo, Quartermaine reported to the commissioners, “Recent survey efforts identified eight (8) emergent shoal areas within the Phase 2 limit. … These features have formed over time through sediment deposition and natural channel migration.”
Those areas, he continued in the memo, “introduce additional considerations beyond the scope of a traditional maintenance dredging project, including bank excavation, potential environmental resource impacts, property ownership questions associated with accreted lands and bank restoration. Collectively, these issues are expected to require additional agency review and permitting coordination.”
Further, during his remarks to the commissioners on Aug. 25, Quartermaine said that the dredging of the waterway that the West Coast Inland Navigation District (WCIND) has been pursuing — from the creek’s mouth to a quarter-mile east of U.S. 41 — was “stalled for a little bit. They had some issues with the containment area at Phillippi [Estate] Park,” which is located at 5500 S. Tamiami Trail in Sarasota.
Quartermaine has explained in the past that the dredge spoils from the WCIND project were being stored at the park on a temporary basis as the work was underway.
In an Aug. 13 email to Quartermaine, County Administrator Jonathan Lewis and the commissioners, Kristy Molyneaux, a member of the Phillippi Creek Coalition — an organization whose members have been advocating for the dredging of the waterway since they suffered repeated flooding during the 2024 hurricane season — wrote, “I have homeowners contacting me with concerns about the dredging delays in the lower creek. I reached out to WCIND yesterday for an update and also met with the County this morning to discuss. WCIND is still waiting on the final approval from Parks and Rec [the county’s Parks, Recreation and Natural Resources Department] before they can resume with the hydraulic dredging. It has been weeks of delay and will be weeks more even after approval. The contractor needs to purchase a new liner for the DMMA site, [which] has a proposed lead time of 4 weeks, and, as you can imagine, they do not want to put in the order for the new liner until the final approval.”
A DMMA is a dredged material management area, “a designated location for the disposal, processing, or beneficial reuse of material that has been dredged form waterways,” the Florida Inland Navigation District explains on its website.
“We are in hurricane season and homeowners are anxious,” Molyneaux continued in her email. “Can you please expedite the approval needed from Parks and Rec? “
Lewis copied the commissioners on his response to her:
“I actually spoke with Justin at WCIND yesterday and he made me aware of an issue he was hoping to resolve.”
“Justin” is Justin McBride, the executive director of the WCIND, which is headquartered in Venice.
Lewis noted that part of that problem was related to the lining of the containment area. Yet, he added, “Part of it was a decision from the county.
“However, “ Lewis continued, “I was able to get with Ben [Quartermaine] yesterday and he spoke to Justin late yesterday. My understanding is that the coordination that needed to occur is happening.”
Lewis concluded his email, “I think this should be resolved.”
A pilot program focused on high-tide flooding
Quartermaine also talked this week about the issue of high-tide flooding on Siesta Key and on St. Armands Key.
“And that high-tide flooding will only increase, based on projections from NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration],” he added. “A big part of the [drainage] study on Siesta Key,” which the board members approved earlier that day, “is to address those types of issues and to employ new types of improvements,” he explained. (See the related article in this issue.]
“We’re looking at Smart Gates,” he continued, which can be opened and closed automatically as needed. (He appeared to be referring to gates produced by a company called Storm Smart, which is based in Fort Myers.)
“We’ve identified an area on Palm Island [on Siesta Key] for a pilot project,” Quartermaine said, “to ensure that these type of systems can handle the saltwater, which is one of the major issues with any type of improvements that we put on the coast,” including the barrier islands.
Further, he reported, he has “walked a big part of the residential area and the commercial area on Siesta Key, as well as [on] St. Armands, just to talk through the issues that they’re having [and consider] some of the types of additional maintenance that we could be doing for them.”
Addressing another issue this week, Quartermaine pointed out that the heavy rainfall in areas of the county over the past month had created some problems. He noted the site of the redevelopment of the former Sarasota Square Mall, as well as Sunnyside Drive in Sarasota and St. Armands Circle.
“[We had] 2 to 3 inches in an hour” at times, Quartermaine pointed out, which he described as “significant rainfall events.”
On the property where the former mall stood, he reported that his team had evaluated the situation, which had resulted in “some flooding in the adjacent neighborhoods.” He added that staff had worked with the developer “to fix that issue,” which, he said, he believed to have been resolved.
As for St. Armands: He had met with members of his staff and the contractor who provides service for the pumps that the county had installed on the barrier island. “We’ve identified some additional improvements that hopefully will stop those pump stations from tripping,” and the pumps will be hardened to a greater degree, he pointed out, to try to prevent future issues with them.
Another area that was the focus of recent improvements was Wilkinson Road in Sarasota, Quartermaine continued. “Really steep ditches” line a portion of that road, he explained. Staff had worked on about 400 feet of pipeline, he said, “to improve drainage and safety for vehicles.”
Hog Creek, which is adjacent to the 10th Street Boat Ramp in the city of Sarasota, also had been a focus of the Stormwater staff, Quartermaine noted. “Staff has been on site multiple times doing inspections,” he explained. “We’ve enlisted the help of the DEP [Florida Department of Environmental Protection], and we’ll continue to monitor that.”