Downtown Council convenes on the river

News

Staff Writer

There’s no better way to start the day than on a gentle cruise along the St. Johns River. At least that was the consensus among members of the Downtown Council of the Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce after they spent an hour aboard the S.S. Marine Taxi Friday morning.

When St. Johns Riverkeeper Neil Armingeon was scheduled several months ago to be the guest speaker at the second gathering in June, the council’s board decided the only place to hold the meeting was on the river rather than the usual location in the Aetna Building.

After an alfresco breakfast on the riverbank, the vessel cast off from Friendship Park and headed south, turning back near Jacksonville Naval Air Station.

Armingeon said the St. Johns River is 310 miles long and Downtown is 20 miles from the mouth of the river. He explained that means by the time the north-flowing body of water reaches the Main Street Bridge, it has collected about as much nutrient material as it will before the river reaches the Atlantic Ocean.

Armingeon pointed out stormwater drain pipes on the bank that discharge directly into the St. Johns River and said the water from those drains flows off buildings, streets and parking lots and is not treated before it enters the waterway. It accounts for about 10 percent of the total nitrogen and phosphorous in the river, the compounds contributing to the current algae blooms and fish kills being reported as far north as Ortega.

“We all live on the river,” he said. “Whatever is on your lawn or business property will end up in the river. We’re putting more nutrients in the river than it can treat and it’s at the breaking point.”

The EPA is just now attempting to develop water quality standards, Armingeon said, and maintaining the waterway for commercial and recreational uses will be a long-term process.

“It’s a decision all of us have to make. Do we commit to restoring the river or just do nothing? It’s up to us. The public owns these resources and we have to say not preserving the river is unacceptable,” he said.

St. Johns Riverkeeper Executive Director Jimmy Orth also addressed the council concerning the issue of water supply and taking water from the river to accommodate development in Central Florida. He said each person in the state uses an average of 160 gallons of water per day, but that can change.

“We believe we can meet future water needs through conservation,” he said.

Orth also said the Maxwell House coffee factory on the Northbank riverfront has recently installed new processes that have allowed the company to reduce its water usage by 30 percent. “They haven’t gotten the publicity they deserve,” he said.

Jacksonville Naval Air Station is taking steps to reduce the amount of wastewater the base discharges into the river. The goal, said Armingeon, is to treat wastewater to a high enough standard that it can be used to irrigate landscaping on the base as well as the golf course at Timuquana Country Club. When that goal is met, “they would have the first zero-discharge system in Duval County,” he said.

When the cruise ended and the passengers disembarked, Downtown Council President Jepp Walter repeated a comment he made an hour earlier when the cruise cleared the marina behind River City Brewing Company.

“We’re definitely going to do this again,” he said.