TALLAHASSEE - The Florida Department of Environmental
Protection (DEP) today announced adoption of the Upper Ocklawaha
River Basin Management Action Plan (BMAP). The action plan,
developed in partnership with cities, counties, the St. Johns
River Water Management District, Lake County Water Authority and
other local stakeholders, is a roadmap to restoring and
protecting water quality in the Upper Ocklawaha River Basin. Its
implementation will benefit surface waters throughout Lake and
part of Orange Counties, including the Clermont Chain of Lakes
connected by the Palatlakaha River, Lake Apopka, Lake Griffin,
and the Harris Chain of Lakes.
In 2003, the DEP adopted water quality restoration targets,
called Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs), to establish how much
phosphorus loadings entering the waterbodies must be reduced.
The TMDLs helped stakeholders evaluate and identify local
actions to control phosphorus discharges. The action plan now
sets forth these actions in detail, including a schedule for
their implementation and potential resources to accomplish them.
The Upper Ocklawaha BMAP is the first to be developed under
DEP’s comprehensive approach to identify polluted waterways and
build partnerships with local, regional and state interests to
clean them. Through a science-based program, DEP determined that
ten of the waterbodies in the Upper Ocklawaha River Basin do not
meet Florida’s water quality standards. High levels of
phosphorus in the waterbodies have caused an imbalance in the
native plant, fish and wildlife communities.
“The Upper Ocklawaha River Basin Management Action Plan
represents an incredibly strong collaboration among local,
regional, and state agencies, elected officials, citizens, and
private interests,” said DEP Deputy Secretary Mimi Drew.
“Together we have committed to a concrete set of actions to
reduce phosphorus pollution in the streams, rivers, and lakes
throughout the basin.”
Among the programs and projects called for in the BMAP are
restoration of former agricultural lands, better stormwater
controls for active agricultural lands and urban development,
more stringent local ordinances to control pollution, surface
water restoration projects by the St. Johns River Water
Management District and the Lake County Water Authority and an
ongoing program of public and private sector education and
outreach. By reducing the discharges of phosphorus through
cooperative action, the ecological health of the Upper Ocklawaha
can be restored.
For more information about DEP’s water quality protection and
restoration programs visit
http://www.dep.state.fl.us/water/tmdl/index.htm.
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2012 State of Florida