At the first stop on the tour, Mayor Oberst welcomed the group to Panama City Beach Conservation Park and gave a brief overview of the public access features to be incorporated into the project. (See related article.) Michael Bomar, Tetra Tech Vice President and project leader led an ongoing presentation and discussion of the technical underpinning for the project as the group toured the site's numerous trails in a caravan of six SUV's.

Panama City Beach officials began considering the project in 2000, according to Mayor Oberst. The challenge was to upgrade, improve and substantially increase the capacity for handling wastewater in the city to meet pollution control requirements and provide for the demands of continuing growth while eliminating the city's discharge of wastewater effluent to West Bay.

In 2002, the city completed feasibility studies, made a commitment to this project and began negotiations with St. Joe to purchase the land. The land has been classified as hydrologically altered by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection as a result of a man-made drainage ditch built by timber companies to facilitate years of pine timber silviculture. In 2003, the city retained Tetra Tech, Inc. to begin studying the feasibility of this conservation project and to work on system design, permitting and engineering to help the city eliminate discharging wastewater effluent to West Bay.

The three thousand acre site contains seven naturally formed drainage sub-basins, each with distinct characteristics. Detailed studies documented existing plant and animal life in these basins, measured rainfall, historical water depths and groundwater levels in each of the basins to establish base line data.

This aerial photo shows the diversity within the basins. The areas shaded orange represent cypress domes. Blue designates basin wetlands. Green shows areas of wet flatwoods while red shows pine flatwood areas. The yellow designates upland scrub growth.

Charting rainfall and evaporation levels against the seasonal flow of wastewater produced the final variables to be taken into consideration in the unique system to manage the flow of wastewater into the basins.

Based on these analyses, two of the southernmost basins will receive heavy rehydration of wastewater from February to May while the vegetation in the other basins complete their growth cycles and rest.

In the high demand period from June through September, rehydration will be directed to all basins according to their capacity.

As flow slackens off again from October through January, the southwestern basins will receive rehydration, while the other areas rest.

To permit this level of control over the flow of wastewater into the wetlands, two and a half miles of water main piping will be installed to service 14 discharge structures. Pressure will lift wastewater from the distribution main up through the discharge structure to ground level where it will flow into a swale which will spread the flow of water across a wide range within the basin. A valve distribution center will regulate the flow to each discharge structure.

Water has historically flowed from these wetlands to an unnamed ditch that eventually drains to the Inland Waterway and from there either east or west depending on the influences of tidal flow. Water from Conservation Park will flow to the Inland Waterway over this same mile-long route.

To insure the existing environment and habitat is maintained and improved when the system is activated, annual inventories of plant and animal life and underground water will be made. Surface water quality will be monitored monthly.

The SUVs for the caravan were provided by St. Joe and driven by St. Joe staff members. Following the tour, all participants were hosted to a box lunch at the St. Joe offices in Panama City Beach.