River Club receives Swiftmud grant

RIVER CLUB — Just a few years ago, at one of the first workshops hosted by the River Club Homeowner’s Association’s Surface Water Committee, the answer to one question proved quite the mystery to many River Club residents.

Do you know where storm water (in River Club) goes?

“The majority of the people (thought) the storm water from the streets went to the county waste water treatment plant,” Surface Water Committee chairman Bob Mendoza said. “Many people didn’t realize we have a separate system. That storm water runoff goes into the lakes. It was an indication of where we need to start education.”

On Feb. 1, the River Club Homeowner’s Association will receive a $4,576 community education grant from the Southwest Florida Water Management District. The money will be used to purchase water quality testing equipment and materials for residents to test and monitor the quality of water in 10 lakes and five stream locations throughout the community.

“We want to build community stewardship through a voluntary water monitoring program,” Mendoza said.
“When you look around (River Club, there are an) awful lot of lakes,” he said. “River Club has a total of 74 of them. Twenty-four of 74, we share with the golf course.”

Staff members from the Southwest Florida Water Management District and the University of Florida LAKEWATCH program will train residents and students on protocols and procedures used for data collection, training them how to test for pH, dissolved oxygen, temperature, nitrates and other information during a volunteer training workshop Feb. 26.

Lake sampling will run from March to July. Teams of two to four volunteers, consisting of a mix of retirees, students, community members and even Boy Scouts, each will be assigned to two lakes, which they will be responsible for testing twice monthly. The initiative is being dubbed the “Love Our Lakes Campaign.”

The River Club Homeowners Association took over control of River Club’s storm water system from the developer in 2005 and soon began reevaluating system, parts of which already were 20 years old, Mendoza said. The Surface Water Committee, created by the association’s board of directors, formed about three years ago, and in December 2009, the group presented to the board a formal three-year management plan for improving the system, through adding more aquatic plants, reducing nutrient loads into the lakes and developing a sense of stewardship between residents and the lakes, Mendoza said.

“One of the recommendations was to get more data about the water quality of the lakes,” Mendoza said. “(The data we get from this initiative will) help us prioritize some of the treatment of our lakes.”

Water flowing into River Club’s lakes flows into Cooper Creek and the Braden River, Mendoza said.

Contact Pam Eubanks at [email protected].

HOW TO HELP
To become a volunteer, contact Bob Mendoza at 962-3726 or [email protected], any member of the Surface Water Committee, or AMI at 359-1134 by the end of January.

A volunteer workshop has been scheduled for 10 a.m., Feb. 26, at the River Club clubhouse, 6600 River Club Blvd., Bradenton. Volunteers will receive classroom and field instruction, a schedule of sampling dates, as well as goggles, gloves and other equipment needed for the project.