Social media lit up Monday with a mix of outrage and disbelief over a public notice that listed New Smyrna Beach’s Turnbull Bay as the “receiving water body” for a planned artificial wetland in the Edgewater portion of the Deering Park development.
As it turns out, the reference to Turnbull Bay was an error. The receiving body should have been listed as Turnbull Hammock, a swampy area 15 miles south of Turnbull Bay and east of Interstate 95. It filters water into an entirely different body of water, the Indian River Lagoon near Titusville.
How did it happen? “Somebody typed Bay instead of Hammock,” said Ernie Cox, a consultant representing Farmton North, LLC, the owner of the property. He was responding to Beat’s inquiry to David Fuechtman, the contact listed on the Feb. 6 public notice.
The seeming decision to release more water into the flood-prone watersheds that lead to Turnbull Bay drew quick criticism on Facebook.
“A massive 2,150 residents HOA and six million square feet of commercial development are being permitted to discharge stormwater into Turnbull Bay, even though there is no remaining capacity in the Turnbull Bay conveyance system. I have videos and photographs documenting this reality,” wrote resident Steven Gunter.
The notice surprised Bryon White, co-founder of the Slow the Growth organization and a candidate for the Volusia County Council: “Very interesting. DPN is quite a ways south of Turnbull Bay. And FYI Turnbull Bay equals Spruce Creek," he posted, using the acronym for Deering Park North, the segment of the development in Edgewater where the wetland is planned.
Among the dozens of comments were demands for hearings and at least one hope that karma would catch up to the developers.
The Edgewater Wetland Park appears as a greenish blue strip on the left side of this drawing. Plans call for it to store reclaimed water from the Edgewater wastewater plant.
The wetland, it turns out, won’t be connected to Turnbull Bay at all. Called the Edgewater Wetland Park, it will be located about two miles west of Interstate 95 on the western fringe of Deering Park North. That’s the middle segment of the planned residential and commercial development that will run for miles along the interstate. Work began last year on the Edgewater segments while the start of work on the New Smyrna Beach segment, Deering Park Innovation Center, awaits approval of a stormwater plan.
The wetland park will be connected by a 16-inch pipe to the City of Edgewater wastewater treatment plant. Some of the reclaimed water from the plant is currently used for irrigation while excess water drains into Indian River. Once the wetland is built, the excess will be sent to the wetland park which will naturally treat it further before it percolates into the ground and replenishes the aquifer, said Ryan Solstice, the development services director for the City of Edgewater. “This is not toilet to tap,” he said.
Confusing Turnbull Hammock for Turnbull Bay was “a pretty big oopsie,” Solstice said. “You’ve got a bunch of people up in arms about it, and it’s just not factually accurate.”
Cox said he expects the wetlands water to evaporate and be absorbed into the ground and never reach the Hammock. But, he added: “You always have to have a receiving water body.”
The wetland will be designed with specific varieties of vegetations appropriate to the area’s fluctuation between wet and dry seasons. For much of the year it will look like a marsh, but other times it will resemble a dry lakebed, Cox said. Plans call for part of the SUN Trail bicycle network to run through it.
The “Notice of Agency Action Taken by the St. Johns Water Management District” said that the management district issued a permit for construction of the artificial wetland on January 13. The groundbreaking is scheduled for April 10 at 11:30 am.
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