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Study to examine creek and growth
By JAMES THORNER, Times Staff Writer LAND O'LAKES -- In Pasco County it snakes -- sometimes flowing, sometimes oozing -- from near the Hernando County Line south to Land O'Lakes and Wesley Chapel. It is Cypress Creek, and Pasco will spend $1-million to study the effects that decades of home construction have had on the creek and its surroundings. The Cypress Creek/South Lakes Watershed Management Plan will pull information from aerial maps of the watershed assembled last year, maps that updated aerial photographs last taken in 1972. With the addition of data gathered from onsite surveys, the county will generate computer models purporting to show how water drains across 135 square miles of land. The land stretches from the source of the creek near Interstate 75 in Darby, through Land O'Lakes, to County Line Road west of Meadow Pointe. This week, the governing board of the Southwest Florida Water Management District approved a first installment to pay for the plan: $115,000. The plan will take about four years to complete, the costs split between the water district and the county. In a flat, watery state such as Florida, even small changes in elevation from development can increase or decrease the likelihood of flooding on a piece of ground. "The thousands and thousands of houses that have been built will significantly affect how water flows," said Mike Garrett, an engineer in the county's storm water management office. The completed watershed plan will help shape flood zone maps collected by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, maps used to determine which homeowners must buy flood insurance. Garrett's colleagues also will use the plan to rate the suitability of future residential and commercial development, ensuring it won't pollute the creek and its tributaries. Part of the study will measure water flow around what's known as South Lakes, the territory dominated by Lake Padgett that slowly drains south toward the Hillsborough River. The county already has completed similar studies for Bear Creek and the Anclote and Pithlachascotee rivers and Lake Zephyr and its tributaries.
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From today's Pasco Times |
