Alafia River Minimum Flows and Levels - Southwest Florida Water ...

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Water Resources Act of 1972, minimum flows are defined as “the minimum flow for a given watercourse shall be the limit at which further withdrawals would be significantly harmful to the water resources or ecology of the area” (Section 373.042 F.S.). A minimum level is defined as “the level of groundwater in an aquifer and the level of surface water at which further withdrawals would be significantly harmful to the water resources of the area.” Statutes provide that MFLs shall be calculated using the best available information. The process of analyzing minimum flows and levels for the Alafia and Myakka rivers is built upon the analyses previously performed on the Upper Peace River (SWFWMD 2002), peer reviewed by Gore et al. (2002), and more recently, on the Middle Peace River (SWFWMD, 2005a), peer reviewed by Shaw et al. (2005). The Alafia and Myakka MFL methodologies incorporate many of the recommendations of these earlier peer reviews, as well as key improvements developed by District staff. Establishment of minimum flows and levels generally is designed to define thresholds at which further withdrawals would produce significant harm to existing water resources and ecological conditions if these thresholds were exceeded in the future. This review follows the organization of the Charge to the Peer Review Panel and the structure of the draft report. It is the job of the Peer Review Panel to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the overall approach, its conclusions, and recommendations. This review is provided to the District with our encouragement to continue to enhance the scientific basis that is firmly established for the decision-making process by the SWFWMD. Combined comments and recommendations are given for the basic approach for analyzing and setting MFLs in both rivers, followed by separate comments on aspects unique to each river; i.e., approaches for setting MFLs for springs in the Alafia River and for dealing with agricultural flow augmentation that occurs in the Myakka River. Extensive editorial comments and suggestions to improve the draft reports on the Alafia and Myakka rivers are provided in the Appendices. 1.0 THE CHARGE The charge to the Peer Review Panel contains five basic requirements: 1. Review the District’s draft documents used to develop provisional minimum levels and flows for the Alafia and Myakka rivers. 2. Review documents and other materials supporting the concepts and data presented in the draft document. 3. Participate in an open (public) meeting at the District’s Tampa Service Office for the purpose of discussing directly all issues and concerns regarding the draft report with a goal of developing this report. 4. Provide to the District a written report that includes a review of the data, Appendix A V
methodologies, analyses, and conclusions outlined in the draft report. 5. Render follow-up services where required. We understand that some statutory constraints and conditions affect the District’s development of MLFs and that the Governing Board may have also established certain assumptions, conditions and legal and policy interpretations. These givens include: 1. the selection of water bodies or aquifers for which minimum levels have initially been set; 2. the determination of the baseline from which “significant harm” is to be determined by the reviewers; 3. the definition of what constitutes “significant harm” to the water resources or ecology of the area; 4. the consideration given to changes and structural alterations to watersheds, surface waters, and aquifers, and the effects and constraints that such changes or alterations have had or placed on the hydrology of a given watershed, surface water, or aquifer; and 5. the adopted method for establishing MFLs for other water bodies and aquifers. In addition to the draft report and appendices, various types of supplementary data provided by the District also were examined as part of this review. 2.0 RESULTS OF THE PEER REVIEW 2.1 Common Approach for Setting MFLs for Alafia and Myakka Rivers MFL Benchmarks and Resource Protection Goals Benchmarks and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) The reports use the five elements listed by Beecher (1990) as guidelines for developing minimum flows and levels (MFLs). These are a good set of guidelines. One guideline, the use of a benchmark period, needs to be coupled to the growing understanding of climate variability, the AMO, and river flow regimes in Florida. The draft report by Kelly (SWFWMD 2004) does an excellent job in demonstrating how various benchmark periods can yield very different answers with regards to flow regime when the AMO is in different modes. The analysis of AMO and streamflow relationships for Florida (SWFWMD 2004) was previously peer reviewed and the findings of the draft report were Appendix A VI
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Alafia River Minimum Flows and Leve
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Table of Contents Table of Contents
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4.3.1 HEC-RAS Modeling ............
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Table of Figures Figure 1-1. Buildi
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Figure 2-33. Phosphorus concentrati
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Figure 5-12. Habitat Gain/Loss for
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Table 5-2. Mean elevation, local (c
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flow, with the exception that withd
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Acknowledgement The authors would l
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9) Water quality; and 10) Navigatio
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Water Management District typically
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Peace River at Zolfo Springs, FL. s
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Period of Record Median Daily Flows
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to enhance understanding of histori
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River watershed, to the east by the
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an adjacent area locally known as t
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Water in the surficial aquifer is r
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The Upper Floridan aquifer (UFA) sy
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Figure 2-4. May and September 2001
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head differences indicating breache
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data (multiple regression) analyses
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2.2 Land Use Changes in the Alafia
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Before discussing individual sub-ba
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Table 2-2. Land use and land cover
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Table 2-3. Land use and land cover
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Figure 2-13. 1972 and 1999 Land use
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2.2.4 Lithia Springs Sub-Basin The
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2.3 Hydrology The assessment of min
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occurred during the spring were sim
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Conversely, since most of the Unite
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extending from 1940 to 1969 can be
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third highest flow occurred early i
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Flow (cfs) Alafia River at Lithia,
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100 North Prong Alafia River at Key
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Flow (cfs) South Prong Alafia River
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Alafia River at Lithia - Water Qual
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South Prong Watershed Above USGS Ga
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Comparisons of land use changes and
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Comparison of Median Daily Flows fo
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Comparisons of Annual 25% Exceedanc
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Figure 2-25. Lithia Springs Major b
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2.3.4.3.2 Discharge from Lithia Spr
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Relationship Between Lithia Springs
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Buckhorn Spring Main Discharge (Wit
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versus flow. The third plot typical
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Alafia River at Lithia, FL Phosphor
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While elevated phosphorus concentra
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Peace River at Arcadia, FL 20 Phosp
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Alafia River at Lithia, FL Nitrate/
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2.4.2 Potassium and Trend Analysis
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Alafia River at Lithia, FL 14 Potas
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Table 2-10. Results of Kendall's ta
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Chapter 3 Ecological Resources of C
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1) maintenance of minimum water dep
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flow regimes and these life history
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subsidy of water and nutrients that
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Chapter 4 Technical Approach for Es
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4.2.1 HEC-RAS Cross-Sections Cross
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PHABSIM analysis required acquisiti
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Figure 4-5. Upstream vegetation cro
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level, whenever possible. Immature
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major parameter altered during the
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Alafia River - Cross Section 64 - W
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Delphi method lacks the rapid feedb
Page 133 and 134: TOTAL DAYS OF INUNDATION DURING THE
Page 135 and 136: Period of Record Median Daily Flows
Page 137 and 138: Wetted Perimeter - USGS 84.5 - SWFW
Page 139 and 140: Alafia River Station 91.5 Stage in
Page 141 and 142: section sites and corresponding flo
Page 143 and 144: 4.9.1.2 Recreational Use Assessment
Page 145 and 146: Chapter 5 Results and Recommended M
Page 147 and 148: greater than 25 cfs would inundate
Page 149 and 150: For the USGS Lithia gage site, the
Page 151 and 152: 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 T20 T21 T27 T3
Page 153 and 154: Wetted Perimeter (linear feet) 2000
Page 155 and 156: dominant vegetation zones, mucky so
Page 157 and 158: 5.5.1 Application of PHABSIM for Bl
Page 159 and 160: 5.5.3 Flow Relationships with Woody
Page 161 and 162: River begins on October 28 and ends
Page 163 and 164: Table 5-4. Maximum monthly percent-
Page 165 and 166: 5.6.3 Short-Term Compliance Standar
Page 167 and 168: Table 5-5. Maximum monthly percent-
Page 169 and 170: 5.8 Short-Term Compliance Standard
Page 171 and 172: Table 5-7. Proposed Minimum Flows f
Page 173 and 174: Biological Services Program Report
Page 175 and 176: Jones, G.W., and Upchurch, S.B., 19
Page 177 and 178: SDI Environmental Services, Inc. 20
Page 179 and 180: Upchurch, S.B. and J.R. Littlefield
Page 181 and 182: A Review of “Alafia River Minimum
Page 183: The draft report for setting MFLs f
Page 187 and 188: The SWFWMD has employed a building
Page 189 and 190: MFLs for the Alafia and Myakka rive
Page 191 and 192: RALPH PLOTS AND ANALYSES Recent and
Page 193 and 194: then used to estimate percent of fl
Page 195 and 196: necessary. Such a framework should
Page 197 and 198: to use to meet the criteria of no s
Page 199 and 200: Shaw, D.T., C.N. Dahm, and S.W. Gol
Page 201 and 202: The District has added to Chapter 4
Page 207 and 208: Attachment A June 15 th , 2005 Mrs.
Page 209 and 210: The Kelly (2004) report includes a
Page 211 and 212: Figure 1. Box-and-whisker plots of
Page 213 and 214: As shown in Table 1, a nonparametri
Page 215 and 216: “augmentation” - be performed a
Page 217 and 218: Estuary Program 'Restoring the Bala
Page 219 and 220: APPENDIX D - District's response to
Page 221 and 222: educed by no more than 8 percent on
Page 223 and 224: sites with comparable temporal reco
Page 225 and 226: gradually removed (this appears as
Page 227 and 228: 1) The DISTRICT acknowledges the ma
Page 229 and 230: Mark Hammond, Director, Resource Ma
Page 231 and 232: Table 1. Mann-Whitney Statistical A
Page 233: Comparison of July Rainfall Totals
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