There are reasons to be skeptical about the stormwater design:

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• The system is designed for a 25-year storm, but it is widely understood that this standard is too weak because of changing weather patterns. (See Flood Risk Rising page.) The standard will be updated, but that will take years. In the meantime, for new roads immediately adjacent to housing areas, wouldn't it be reasonable to require that the system should be designed to deal with something like two back-to-back 150-year storms?

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• The detention pond that the city is counting on to absorb the road runoff is an uncomfortable distance - almost a mile - from the new road. New developments in our area usually include new detention ponds immediately adjacent to them, for obvious reasons.  During a bad storm, debris clogs up the drains, the canals, and the pipes that conduct runoff. Large objects (such as trash cans) get stuck in the pipes that transport the stormwater under roads (think: Henry, Hollywood, and subdivision roads), exacerbating the flooding. The longer the route, the greater the probability of blockage. The seriousness of this risk is illustrated by an  incident that occurred on  28 Sep 2022, when vegetation blocked the canal at the culvert where it passes under Hollywood Blvd.  This caused, the water levels in Doherty Pond to rise  to very high levels. Details, with photos, are here: Canal Blockage Incident  

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• The risk is especially concerning when there are back-to-back storms. (Think 2004: Hurricane Frances, cat 2; then Hurricane Jeanne, cat 3.) For back-to-back storms, when city resources will be stretched to the breaking point, it is likely that debris will not be cleared in time to prevent flooding.

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• West Melbourne residents have fresh memories of bad experiences with flooding in recent times. If another Tropical Storm Fay hits us, the entire area will be saturated; then on top of that, the new road will result in over a million additional gallons of water being dumped into the canal east of The Preserve, which then passes by many housing areas: Hollywood Estates, Eastwood Two, Clifton Edge, Clements Woods, Compass Pointe, and Palm Lake Estates. Will a  stormwater management system with questionable reliability, that was designed for an era of moderate storms, protect these neighborhoods during the kinds of storms we know are coming?

 

The history of the project does not inspire confidence. There have been too many errors, too many omissions, too much swept under the rug.

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• The stormwater permit application for the lakes in The Preserve, Eastwood One, and Eastwood Two contained a serious error, and should never have been approved. The error was not found for five years! Meanwhile, for five years, residents were unaware that their stormwater systems did not meet the specification.

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• When the City Council was briefed on the history of the permitting process, the briefing neatly sidestepped the five-year gap story. In fact, the presentation seemed to encourage the council to think they need not worry too much about the design because the permitting experts would look at the details!

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• City Council was given incorrect information about the drainage of the backyards adjacent to the new road, which made the design task seem simpler than it was in reality.

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• The backyard drainage information was required as part of the original permit request, but the city did not submit it until many months after the original submission, when specifically requested by SJRWMD.

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• The city submitted a design that did not include any measures to reduce the stormwater flow, in spite of having declared that flood prevention is our "priority one", and in spite of having promised not to make the flood risk worse for residents.

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• The pump used to prevent flooding of the Doherty Pond is being replaced. In the process, it was revealed that the pump is 24 years old, has been sitting outside for 20 years, has not been well maintained, and can't be counted on.

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In short, the stormwater system was designed for the moderate rainfall events of the past, not the kinds of extreme storms we are now seeing; it has no local detention pond of any kind, leaving many housing areas vulnerable to flooding, especially during back-to-back storms; and its history suggests lack of attention to detail, leaving us with little confidence.

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