When the federal government hands you a lemon, it's like doing business with a shady used car dealer. Tough luck, buster.
Sorry to say it, but what happened Thursday at the South Florida Water Management District Governing Board meeting was Tuesday's Florida Cabinet deadbeat dad encounter all over again.
Thankfully, the state reached into its pocket again and came to Florida taxpayers' rescue. Same old story.
The pretty, lipsticked-up press release version of the story is this: The SFWMD board Thursday "signed an agreement that will transform the Ten Mile Creek Water Preserve Area into a functional water storage and water quality improvement project for the St. Lucie River and Estuary.
"Taking control of the project from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers allows SFWMD to make repairs to fill the long idle federal reservoir with four feet of excess stormwater that would otherwise flow to the St. Lucie River. A wetland at the site in St. Lucie County will clean that water before it reaches the river."
"Today's action literally required an act of Congress, and significant credit goes to South Florida's Congressional delegation and St. Lucie County officials for their steadfast efforts," said SFWMD Governing Board Vice Chairman Kevin Powers. "We will now work without further delay to repair and operate the 10 Mile Creek project to finally provide tangible benefits for the St. Lucie River and Estuary and Treasure Coast families."
All true, all good. But, hidden herein is an infuriating back story.
Folks, this project should have been up and functional and sparing Treasure Coast residents from the worst effects of Lake Okeechobee years and years ago. I remember when the project was authorized by Congress in 1996 -- that's 20 years ago, for heaven's sake.
The project, all in St. Lucie County, was designed by the Corps and built by the Corps. Its premise was first-rate -- to improve the timing and volume of water deliveries to the North Fork of the St. Lucie River by capturing, storing and treating stormwater runoff from the Ten Mile Creek Basin.
Secondary benefits included the reduction of fine sediment and nutrients -- the bad stuff -- flowing to the St. Lucie River, increased freshwater recharge into the aquifer -- all with the ability to make releases back to Ten Mile Creek for water supply when needed. Exciting stuff in 1996.
Budgeted to cost up to $50 million, the reservoir complex was a joint effort between the SFWMD and the Corps. A 50-50 partnership. Florida paid, the Corps paid.
"I was so excited about this project," former state Sen. Ken Pruitt told me. "I thought, for once citizens will have a chance to see the fruits of their tax dollars every time they drive up the interstate. It's right there, just off I-95 south of State Road 50. You can see it from the road."
The House and Senate were in the hands of the Democrats in early 1996, that's how long ago the reservoir was authorized. Pruitt was a member of the House back then. By the time construction was completed, 10 years later, not only was Pruitt in the Senate, he was its president. "I always wondered why the Corps took over building it," he said. "This was a project that really fit the DNA of the Water Management District."
He was right to wonder, as it happened. Everything that could go wrong did. From the day state and federal officials cut the ribbon, Ten Mile Creek Reservoir was a big, fat juicy lemon.
Powers, who lives in Martin County, called it "a perfect storm of awfulness."
I asked him why the reservoir never did what it was supposed to do. "I'm no engineer," Powers told me, "but as I understand it, water was leaking out of the bottom. There's a vein of limerock running through there that gave water a way out."
The bottom line is, during operational testing, design and construction deficiencies were identified that rendered the project unsafe for operation. It remained non-operational for several years while the Corps took the contractor to court. Eventually, the Corps settled the case.
In the end the Corps -- an agency of the federal government, one-half of the 50-50 partners in the project -- received money from the contractor who built it. How much we have no idea. The settlement was sealed, so I can't give you the details.
But the other half of the partnership? The state? We were the chumps who paid our share, had zero say during bad construction. We got nothing. Expected fix-it cost: $8 million.
The SFWMD could have let it slide, waited another 20 years for the same Corps that hasn't finished repairing the Herbert Hoover Dike around Lake Okeechobee to repair Ten Mile Creek Reservoir.
"But residents and our estuaries come first," Powers said. "Our board didn't like it, we struggled, but we swallowed hard and put the urgency of the river ahead of everything."
Actually, it took two years to get to May 12th's triumph, when the district Governing Board could wrest the project away from the Army Corps. In August 2014 the SFWMD made the request; in June 2015 the Corps authorized the district to make repairs to store one foot of water at the site while the request to take over the project was pending in Congress; in December 2015, following the congressional action, the president signed into law the bill that took the project away from the Corps and gave it to the state. (The district already owned the land.)
Had the reservoir been build correctly the first time, it would be holding eight feet of water today. But after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the standard for levees changed. Ten Mile Creek Reservoir will hold four feet instead. That's 2,500 acre feet of water.
No more federal foot-dragging, that's what I like as much as anything else. Construction bid requests for the "fix" are scheduled to go out in July, with a contract award in September and project completion in June 2017.
"It's not fair, it's not right, it doesn't feel good," Powers said of the Corps' deadbeat posture. "But this job needs to get done and we're determined to do it."
How about giving the Governing Board and staff a little praise for this, for getting their priorities right, for going through the hoops to squeeze this lemon into something sweeter for the long-suffering St. Lucie Estuary.
Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at 228-282-2423. Twitter: @NancyLBSmith
