Post by L Roebuck on Jun 17, 2006 21:20:51 GMT -5
Wal-Mart gets water permit for Alachua Supercenter
By Ronald Dupont Jr.
Herald Editor
ALACHUA -- Over the protests of environmental groups, Wal-Mart has been given the environmental permit necessary to move forward in the process of getting a Supercenter built in Alachua.
The Suwannee River Water Management District's governing board voted 6-0 Tuesday to give Wal-Mart an environmental resource permit for a proposed 184,000-square-foot Supercenter to be built behind the McDonald's restaurant at the corner of U.S. 441 and Interstate 75.
While Wal-Mart had a number of company representatives and various experts at Tuesday's meeting, they were never asked any questions. The governing board, instead, relied on the expert opinion of the water district's staff, which recommended approval.
Representatives from the Suwannee-St. John's Sierra Club, the Santa Fe Springs Working Group, the Save our Suwannee group and the National Speleological Society questioned why Wal-Mart was being allowed to build over an elaborate cave system and use retention ponds that feed water relatively quickly into the ground.
They said that the water underneath Wal-Mart's property needs only two weeks to flow to High Springs, where the water shows up at Camp Kulaqua's Hornsby Spring. That water, in turn, feeds into the Santa Fe River.
"This is a no-brainer," said Buford Pruitt of the National Speleological Society in asking for the permit to be denied. "You're playing Russian roulette with a fully-loaded gun."
Representatives of the various environmental groups said that if Wal-Mart was going to be allowed to build, the retail giant should be forced to use "wet ponds" instead of "dry ponds."
But Jon Dinges, the Resource Management director for the water district, said the dry ponds were the environmentally right choice to make. He said that wet ponds are designed to hold water for long periods of time so that water can percolate slowly into the aquifer.
He said that if a wet pond goes over a certain level, that overflow is immediately fed to another location. In the case of the proposed Alachua Wal-Mart Supercenter, the water would be sent to the other side of U.S. 441, and that would cause flooding.
That would be illegal, Dinges said. He also said that because the Wal-Mart in Alachua is proposed to be built on a hill, there is going to be a large amount of water flowing to the bottom of the hill -- volumes of water that only dry ponds can handle.
He said that by using dry ponds, the water can be allowed to percolate into the ground much quicker, with the ground acting as a filter before the water reaches the aquifer.
Full Article:
www.highspringsherald.com/articles/2006/06/15/news/news04.txt
By Ronald Dupont Jr.
Herald Editor
ALACHUA -- Over the protests of environmental groups, Wal-Mart has been given the environmental permit necessary to move forward in the process of getting a Supercenter built in Alachua.
The Suwannee River Water Management District's governing board voted 6-0 Tuesday to give Wal-Mart an environmental resource permit for a proposed 184,000-square-foot Supercenter to be built behind the McDonald's restaurant at the corner of U.S. 441 and Interstate 75.
While Wal-Mart had a number of company representatives and various experts at Tuesday's meeting, they were never asked any questions. The governing board, instead, relied on the expert opinion of the water district's staff, which recommended approval.
Representatives from the Suwannee-St. John's Sierra Club, the Santa Fe Springs Working Group, the Save our Suwannee group and the National Speleological Society questioned why Wal-Mart was being allowed to build over an elaborate cave system and use retention ponds that feed water relatively quickly into the ground.
They said that the water underneath Wal-Mart's property needs only two weeks to flow to High Springs, where the water shows up at Camp Kulaqua's Hornsby Spring. That water, in turn, feeds into the Santa Fe River.
"This is a no-brainer," said Buford Pruitt of the National Speleological Society in asking for the permit to be denied. "You're playing Russian roulette with a fully-loaded gun."
Representatives of the various environmental groups said that if Wal-Mart was going to be allowed to build, the retail giant should be forced to use "wet ponds" instead of "dry ponds."
But Jon Dinges, the Resource Management director for the water district, said the dry ponds were the environmentally right choice to make. He said that wet ponds are designed to hold water for long periods of time so that water can percolate slowly into the aquifer.
He said that if a wet pond goes over a certain level, that overflow is immediately fed to another location. In the case of the proposed Alachua Wal-Mart Supercenter, the water would be sent to the other side of U.S. 441, and that would cause flooding.
That would be illegal, Dinges said. He also said that because the Wal-Mart in Alachua is proposed to be built on a hill, there is going to be a large amount of water flowing to the bottom of the hill -- volumes of water that only dry ponds can handle.
He said that by using dry ponds, the water can be allowed to percolate into the ground much quicker, with the ground acting as a filter before the water reaches the aquifer.
Full Article:
www.highspringsherald.com/articles/2006/06/15/news/news04.txt