To Help Flow, Swiftmud Buys 3 Homes

BARTOW | Water officials purchased three more homes Tuesday as part of a plan to raise the level of Lake Hancock to maintain flow in the Peace River.

The purchases approved Tuesday at the Southwest Florida Water Management District's Governing Board meeting in Bartow were:

Charles Estes, who owns a 2.7-acre parcel on Waterwood Drive, was paid $885,000.

Frank Fernandez Jr. and Paige Fernandez, who own a 1.7-acre parcel on Jacque Lee Lane, were paid $376,750.

James and Diane Allen, who own a 1.25-acre parcel in the Waterwood subdivision, were paid $1 million.

These are the latest in a series of 54 purchases the agency has made of land around Lake Hancock and along Saddle Creek that would be affected by rising water levels.

So far, 12 parcels have been purchased, representing more than 7,680 acres. More than $87 million has been spent on acquisition of land for the project so far.

Lake Hancock is a 4,500-acre water body near Bartow at the river's headwaters.

The plan involves raising the lake's level and creating a dam-like structure on Saddle Creek south of the lake to store more water that can be gradually released during dry periods to maintain minimum flow in the section of the Peace River that's in Polk County.

Bruce Wirth, Swiftmud's deputy executive director, said the planned Lake Hancock reservoir probably won't provide all of the water needed to maintain the Upper Peace River's minimum flow - especially during droughts - and an additional reservoir will be needed.

"There will be some dry periods when we'll be able to supply the river for the first two years, but not the third year,'' he said.

Wirth said 50 years of data from the lake and its watershed were used to arrive at the calculations in the plan.

State law requires water management districts to set minimum flows on rivers.

The minimum flow on the Peace River has been set at 17 cubic feet per second at Bartow and 27 cfs at Fort Meade.

For much of the winter and spring this year the river was below those minimums and has been flowing above the minimum only over the past month or so with the arrival of normal summer rains.

The river's flow was harmed by years of overpumping of the aquifer. Water managers claim efforts to recover aquifer levels are not feasible and the reservoir is seen as the only suitable way to try to maintain something resembling normal flow in the river.

[ Tom Palmer can be reached at tom.palmer@theledger.com or at 863-802-7535. ]