Funding Protects an Environmental Treasure
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Periodic failures of the City of Apalachicola's antiquated sewage treatment plant threatened the bay, the source of 90 percent of oysters consumed in Florida. DEP stepped in with a creative funding solution to help Apalachicola build an advanced wastewater treatment plant and protect one of the nation's greatest estuaries.
Ralph Varnes, Apalachicola Fishing Fishing Guide: We're going out to the big river, turn right, down the big river, to Apalachicola Bay.
Narrator: Fishing guide Ralph Varnes idles out of the cypress-lined Poorhouse Creek into the Apalachicola River. It's a journey he's made thousands of times to get to the bay where he's made a living as long as he can remember.
Ralph Varnes: Ever since I was a kid I been on Apalachicola bay. I was born and raised in Apalachicola. Been on the Bay all my life, really.
Narrator: The Apalachicola River primes Apalachicola Bay, one of the nation's great estuaries...home to the most productive oyster beds in the nation and habitat for shrimp, crabs and fish that find their way to Florida's dinner tables. Maintaining good water quality is the key to the Bay's productivity.
Ralph Varnes: I'm not a scientist or anything, but I think the quality is great. Pure as any bay in the world.
Narrator: Reliance on the bay is pretty typical of folks in and around Apalachicola. For more than 100 years, oystering has served as the backbone of the community's economy with as many as a thousand people employed in Apalachicola's oyster industry today.
But the industry has had its share of ups and downs. In the 1980s, oystering was often shut down; the local shellfish deemed unfit for consumption due to increased levels of bacteria.
One source of pollution was Apalachicola's antiquated sewage collection and treatment system, which was frequently overwhelmed by high tides and stormwater.
The City of Apalachicola was simply unable to finance the 24-million dollars it would take to fix the problem. D-E-P stepped in with a creative funding program to help the city fund the construction of an advanced wastewater treatment plant that would help protect the river and bay. Bob Holmden, who directs the Bureau of Water Facilities Funding within D-E-P, explains.
Bob Holmden, Florida Department of Environmental Protection:
What the state revolving fund program allows is a benefit of approximately 25 to 30 percent savings over going to a bank or some other commercial lender.
Narrator: Since 1988, when the state revolving fund was created, communities from the Panhandle to the Keys have relied upon low-interest loans to rebuild or improve wastewater and drinking water systems, or stormwater treatment systems in order to reduce water pollution.
Bob Holmden: Through the SRF program we're lending out approximately $200 million in any given year. The small community grant program is much smaller. We're putting out approximately $18 million a year through that program. That's strictly in grant monies. Those are monies that they don't have to repay.
Narrator: The funding program was critical to helping Apalachicola and the bay, an environmentally sensitive ecosystem and area of critical state concern. Today, Apalachicola's wastewater plant treats some 350,000 gallons of sewage and can handle up to a million gallons a day.
The treated wastewater is pumped to a nearby wetland called Huckleberry Swamp. Here additional nutrients are naturally removed from the wastewater. The swamp eventually becomes Huckleberry Creek, another tributary of the Apalachicola River. Don Berryhill, who led DEP's efforts to help Apalachicola likes what he sees these days when he visits Huckleberry Creek.
Don Berryhill: This is the site where huckleberry creek really becomes a creek. I'm impressed as to how clear it is and it appears that there's not a lot of algal growth or the types of growth that you'd expect from water that's polluted with wastewater.
Narrator: Berryhill insists that the protection of the Apalachicola Bay is one of the most important environmental protection efforts in the state . And, the Apalachicola story set a precedent for the way that D-E-P works with disadvantaged, small communities to fund water protection efforts. According to Jimmy Mosconis, an Apalachicola native who owns the Bay City Lodge, the fish camp where Ralph Varnes works as a guide the cumulative effect of all the local and state efforts is clearly evident.
Jimmy Mosconis, Owner of Bay City Lodge: There's no doubt in my mind that Apalachicola bay is in a much healthier standpoint than it was in just 20 years. It's been a phenomenal clean-up, I'd say.
Related Links
Water Resource Funding in Florida Brochure(PDF)
Copyright 2010 Florida Department of Environmental Protection