Runoff a Problem for a Florida Airport

Storm water issues continue to haunt a Northwest Florida airport two years after it was opened

Florida officials are still plagued by outcry over possible excessive storm water discharge around the sensitive habitat surrounding the Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport, according to the Panama-City News-Herald.

Nearly two years after the facility officially opened, airport officials must spend another $1.25 million to evaluate the performance of the facility’s storm water management system, and review and complete restoration of surrounding wetlands.

The facility is still experiencing some water flows with excessive turbidity, according to one official. The price tag could top $1.25 million if additional construction is needed to solve the problem once and for all and remove direct oversight of the Florida Department of Environment Protection (FDEP.

The airport site has been under intense environmental monitoring since the FDEP became intimately involved in mid-2009, when heavy rains and a major breach of storm water runoff controls during construction swept erosion into nearby wetland habitats and tributaries.

The airport already has dumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into FDEP fines and environmental consulting, extra sodding and seeding, and the $5 million reconstruction of a crucial storm water filtration pond, all of which led to multiple lawsuits between the airport and its construction partners.

Major storm water erosion areas on the 1,400-acre airport site have been stabilized, but the U.S Environmental Protection Agency and FDEP were concerned with the performance of the storm water drainage system, which was supposed to meet FDEP specifications for returning storm water back into the West Bay watershed.

Source: News-Herald