The owners of 15 or so homes in Pinellas Point enjoy their lake - at a distance. The city says not to worry.
By JON WILSON
Published May 30, 2004
ST. PETERSBURG - As residents near Lake Coronado worry about overflows flooding their homes, city officials say plans to better drain the lake in Greater Pinellas Point are afoot - but still a way off.
Lake Coronado lies just south of 58th Avenue S between 11th and 13th streets, a neighborhood of verdant yards and trees spreading wide canopies.
A drainage ditch flows out of Coronado, plunges under 11th Street and empties into neighboring Lake Catalina, about two blocks northeast.
Little Bayou Creek is the last link, flowing from Catalina into the bayou, which is south of Coquina Key.
Along the way, several potential choke points exist to impede flow. The city says it intends to fix any that need it.
Meanwhile, some of the owners of the 15 to 18 houses around Lake Coronado fret. They say they have been flooded before and worry about it happening again.
"We're quaking in our boots," Jim Daniels said.
Residents recall storms during the past few years that have left water in yards, garages and, in some cases, their houses.
"Anything above one of those 3- or 4-inch (storms) in a short period or time . . . 6 inches or more, we're going to have serious water," Daniels said.
Daniels and others point to a couple of factors they believe cause the flooding: a too-small connector between Lakes Coronado and Catalina, and development in the neighborhood.
In particular, they cite the Lakewood Baseball Complex and its parking lot, saying the ground area available for natural drainage has been reduced.
A problem developed during Tropical Storm Gabrielle in 2001, Bill Heilman said.
"All that water was channeling down into the system of lakes where it used to be swamp land. We had water in the front from the street because it had no place to go, and water from the lake at the back door," Heilman said.
The floodwater got into their house's foundation and into at least one room in the house, he said.
City stormwater and drainage boss Mike Connors said he has been aware of residents' concerns for years and promises that the city will stay on the case.
For one thing, his department will ask the City Council for $200,000 to design an enlargement of the drain between the two lakes. "We'll increase the size of the piping and quadruple the size of the conduit," Connors said.
Bigger and better outflow is what residents want, but getting it all installed is probably a couple of years down the road. The $200,000 design funding will be requested for the 2004-05 budget, for example.
In the meantime, Connors said, his department will:
Use a robotlike device with legs that can crawl up and down a creek bed to clear blockages. It lowered Lake Coronado by about 2 inches last summer. Connors said that is a significant lowering for a lake 4 to 5 feet deep, as Coronado is.
"It gives us more storage capability (in the lake)," Connors said. "We haven't noticed any garage flooding since then."
Redirect some of the runoff from the Lakewood Baseball Complex, which eventually finds its way to Lake Coronado. That job should start in two or three weeks, Connors said, after the city won permission from the school district.
Lake Coronado's neighbors also worry that a dozen new homes approved for 12th Street near the baseball complex will take away even more natural drainage.
But city studies showed that the development would have "very little measurable impact" because the houses will have drainage swales in their side yards, Connors said.
