Middle St. Johns - Florida Department of Environmental Protection

Water Quality Assessment Report: Middle St. Johns
101
Table 3.8 (continued)
3c—Meets Planning List criteria and is potentially impaired for one or more designated uses;
4a—Impaired for one or more designated uses and the TMDL is complete;
4b—Impaired for one or more designated uses but no TMDL is required because the impairment is not caused by a
pollutant;
4c—Impaired for one or more designated uses, but no TMDL is required because an existing or proposed pollutant
control mechanism provides reasonable assurance that the water will attain standards in the future; and
5—Water quality standards are not attained and a TMDL is required.
4
Parameters in bold meet the Verified List evaluation criteria, Section 62-303.400, F.A.C.
5
Parameters in italics are in Category 4 (a, b, or c) waters that do not require TMDL development.
6
The assessment categories listed in this column represent the status of each WBID as a whole, based on multiple
parameters. The hierarchy for assigning these categories is Category 5, then 4, then 3c, then 2, and then 3b, i.e., each WBID
is assigned a category based on the highest category assigned to an individual parameter. For example, if WBID 9999 has
total coliforms as Category 5, fecal coliforms as Category 3c, and coliforms-shellfish as Category 2, the single assessment
call for the WBID is Category 5.
F = Fresh water
M = Marine
DO = Dissolved oxygen
TSI = Trophic State Index
the Ocklawaha Basin. The facility discharging the smallest amount is
the Pierson Laundromat (0.0043 mgd), an industrial wastewater source
discharging into the Price Creek watershed. Another notable facility is
River Park Utilities, discharging 0.025 mgd. This facility has its own reuse
system. Appendix G lists, by planning unit, the permitted dischargers in
the basin.
Other contributors of point source discharges include one closed Class I
and two closed Class II solid waste landfills, as well as one closed construction
and debris landfill. There are no delineated areas under Chapter
62-524, F.A.C., Potable Delineated Water Well Permitting in Delineated
Areas, and no Superfund or state-funded hazardous waste sites.
Nonpoint Sources. Water (32.7 percent), upland forest (30.8 percent),
and wetlands (21.6 percent) occupy most of the land area in the planning
unit. Urban and built-up lands cover about 7 percent of the total land
area, mostly concentrated around the town of Pierson, on the eastern side
of the planning unit, or on the north shore of Lake George. Agriculture
accounts for 5.4 percent of the total land area. These developed land uses
can be associated with nonpoint discharges of pollutants and eroded sediments.
Appendix H provides a detailed analysis of land use in the basin,
by planning unit.
Major pollution in the planning unit comes from urban and agricultural
runoff. Specifically, the SJRWMD estimated that 2.3 million
pounds of pesticides were used in 1988, with an unknown amount entering
the St. Johns River just upstream of Lake George. It also has been suggested
that leakage of old sanitary sewers could be contributing to water
quality degradation. The St. Johns River, however, is probably responsible
for the highest pollution loading into the basin (Alvarez, Lehman, and
Associates, 1991).
Ecological Summary
The Lake George State Forest is one of several publicly owned tracts
of land encircling Lake George. The St. Johns River borders three and
a half miles of the forest and provides a wealth of ecologically valuable