2008-385 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

PBS&I V An employee-owned company September 16, 2008 Mr. Erik Olson Indian River County Utilities 1840 25" Street Vero Beach, FL 32960 RE : Fourth Request for Additional Information (RAI) Indian River County- Hobart Park and Oslo Water Treatment Plants Consumptive Use Permit (CUP) Application 10524 Dear Mr. Olson: We have reviewed the fourth RAI letter dated July 8, 2008 from the St. Johns River Water Management District (SJRWMD), which consisted of seven comments requesting additional information in support of the County ' s CUP renewal application . . As a follow-up to that letter, the County and PBS&J met with the SJRWMD on August 13 , 2008 to review the necessary responses to RAI No. 4 to minimize the potential of a fifth RAI. (Note: We prepared responses to RAI No. 4 comments 1 through 5 under our existing budget prior to the meeting with the SJRWMD.) As the discussion at the meeting segued into RAI No. 4 Comments Nos. 6 and 7 , the County deferred to PBS &J to "work out" the details of the response in the County' s absence . The subsequent discussions between PBS&J and the SJRWMD in the County' s absence were very enlightening. The District presented preliminary results from the District-Wide modeling effort which indicated significant impacts to environmental receptors through out the SJRWMD, including Indian River County. District staff indicated that the accuracy of their District-wide modeling could not be adequately evaluated at the local scale and felt that a more refined model from the County would evaluate environmental impacts at local scale and could be in the County' s best interest. SJRWMD acknowledged the limited amount of information available in the area and believe that the discussed refinements would provide the information needed to support the CUP renewal . Subsequent to the aforementioned PBS&J and SJRWMD discussion on August 13`h, we spoke with the County in regards to the efforts necessary to answer RAI No. 4 Comments Nos . 6 and 7 . We estimated that the work needed to respond to the RAI would be approximately $47 ,000 . The County believes that much of the information requested by SJRWMD in Comments Nos . 6 and 7 of RAI No . 4 is duplicated from RAI No . 3 Comments Nos. 6 and 7 . After further review of RAI No. 3 responses and additional discussions with SJRWMD, we have determined that it is not a case of duplicate questions; but rather„ as indicated during the August 13 'hdiscussions between PBS &J and the SJRWMD, further model refinement is required. This is confirmed via Rich Burklew ' s e-mail of September 15 , 2008, which states : "Thanks for contacting me this morning to discuss the status of the modeling being done in support of the Indian River County consumptive use application for the proposed expansion of their wellfield. As I noted then, this is a very comprehensive modeling effort in an area where there is no benefit of a District regional model to use as a guide in model design. The County ' s modeling effort is considerable given the large model size and the numerous variables and assumptions that are integral to its design and calibration. I think the modeling questions to date reflect that both a progression and refinement of the model has , and is , occurring . As you know, the degree of resolution in the model needed to meet permitting criteria is considerable greater than the level used by the District in our broad, regional, modeling effort supporting the regional water supply 335 East Van Fleet Drive • Bartow, Florida 33830 9 Telephone 863 . 533.7000 • Fax 863. 533. 7888 9 www. pbsj .com