An update on Lake Bonny flooding given at Monday’s Lakeland City Commission meeting seemed mundane on its face. Yet it left some Lake Bonny residents fuming.
Those residents are struggling with the devastation left by flooding that accompanied Hurricane Milton in October. They believe the city could have done more to draw down Lake Bonny when it was high, and still can.
The city says its hands are tied by its permit from the South Florida Water Management District, which oversees lake levels, and regulates how much water can be pumped out of Lake Bonny and how quickly, in part to avoid flooding at Bartow’s wastewater treatment facility, on the Peace River.
At the Monday meeting, City Manager Shawn Sherrouse told the four commissioners in attendance that the city had received an Emergency Field Authorization for Lake Bonny so that it could pump water out once the level reached 129.60 feet, down from the previously permitted 130.1 feet.
“So it is now at a lower elevation when we can operate the emergency pump,” Sherrouse explained.
A call for action: For some Lake Bonny residents who fear renewed flooding, Sherrouse’s comments were a red flag.
In a press release emailed Wednesday under the header “A Call for Action,” the residents said, “While we appreciate that action is being taken, we want to express our deep concerns that this adjustment does not provide a real, long-term solution to the flooding issues that continue to threaten our community.”
The water-level change is “minimal,” they said, it doesn’t provide “a sustainable flood prevention strategy” and it fails to address whether the city’s pump is working properly.
(Sherrouse, at the Commission meeting, said the city had been checking the pump weekly to make sure it’s working. “It’s operating at its maximum capacity that the system can accommodate,” he said.)
A petition launched: The residents have launched a petition at chang.org asking for “a neutral third-party investigation into the flooding response and infrastructure failures” and “a Lake Bonny Citizen Oversight Committee to ensure transparency and ongoing accountability,” among other demands.
“Our community,” they said, “deserves real solutions, not temporary band-aids.”
The residents had previously said that when they had at least 1,000 signatures, they would present their petition to local and state officials. On Wednesday afternoon, on change.org, it reached 200.
Robert Meyerowitz is a reporter for LkldNow, a nonprofit newsroom providing independent local news for Lakeland. Read at LkldNow.com.
