During this holiday season I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but after doing alot of research regarding the stormwater runoff from the downtown area of the City of Inverness into the Tsala Chain of Lakes, I find that no governmental body is addressing the problem, or doing anything about it.

Not the City of Inverness, Not the County and most certainly Not Swiftmud.

Their attitude seems to be that the stormwater runoff system that has existed for many many years is perfectly adequate, so there is no reason to change anything or to establish any sort of stormwater management program for the area to protect the health and well being of the lakes.

The new and very expensive Inverness City Hall has an exfiltration system that is supposed to contain most of the stormwater runoff from the expanded impervious surface parking lot and building, and is then supposed to overflow into the stormwater drain system located on N. Pine Street, and then into Little Lake Henderson.

As I pointed out to Swiftmud, that may be all well and good, but the drain system on N. Pine does Not work, and hasn.t worked for years, and besides popping manhole covers all along the street when it rains, it overflows down Dampier St. and onto N. Apopka Street, which in turn contributes to the flooding problem that has existed ever since the Stovall Property had the Courthouse Annex building built on it.

At this point it gets a little more bizarre, because Swiftmud and the county have come up with new design to .solve the Stovall problem. by raising the curbing along both sides of N. Apopka to create a sluiceway or aqueduct, so that all of the untreated stormwater will run into new 24 inch drain that runs directly into the lake.

The county will swear that the untreated stormwater is going into the old 18 inch stormdrain, which according to them is .grandfathered in., but don’t believe them, because it ain’t true.

I am sure that many of you have seen the major & deep flooding that occurs at the intersection of S. Apopka and Rte. 44 next to Walgreens when it rains, and I haven.t figured out where that stormwater runoff ends up. Maybe it drains into my favorite Cooter Pond just down the street, but who knows.

You might consider establishing a task force of members to talk to the City, the county and to Swiftmud to solve this major point source of pollution problem, because its getting worse every day, and contributes greatly to the degradation of the Tsala Chain of Lakes and associated waterways.