St. Petersburg Drainage Ditch Conveyance Improvements
Pinellas County, FL
Water Resource Associates, (WRA) designed, permitted and managed construction for the conveyance improvements within a City of St. Petersburg Drainage Ditch east of 4
th Street South just north of 55
th Avenue South. The improvements were associated with the Little Bayou Coastal Restoration Project, a public/private partnership facilitated by WRA as part of a wetland mitigation requirement for a permitted wetland impact within Carillon Town Center in the
City of St. Petersburg. WRA Project Manager, Mark Farrell, identified the project partnership opportunity between the City of St. Petersburg, SWFWMD and the private developer, and arranged the funding structure for the project that included provisions for the private sector developer to fund all design, permitting and construction costs. The Little Bayou restoration project is described in more detail in a separate enclosed project description.
Under pre construction conditions, the conveyance channel constricted east of 4
th Street into a failed SWFWMD SWIM restoration project causing a backwater effect upstream into adjacent neighborhoods. WRA designed and permitted a modified mitigation site that included open water features and a hard lined, channelized portion of the ditch for increased conveyance capacity at the downstream end of the 4
th street culvert. As a result, backwater conditions due to the restriction were alleviated. SWFWMD and the
City of St. Petersburg benefited as the SWIM project that would have been years away from implementation was resumed, completed and funded within one year. While the construction was completed in April 2003 - WRA has continued to perform Site Monitoring and Maintenance of the Wetland restoration portion through 2007.