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Southwest Florida Water Management District shows updated floodplain mapping; Powell Road residents warn development worsened flooding
Summary
The Southwest Florida Water Management District presented watershed mapping for Powell, Peck Sink and Squirrel Prairie basins. Residents at the Brooksville City Council meeting urged stricter scrutiny of Southern Hills and similar developments, citing repeated flooding, well contamination concerns and a delayed independent study.
Southwest Florida Water Management District engineers presented updated watershed and floodplain mapping to the Brooksville City Council on May 19, showing detailed lidar-based topography and model outputs for the Peck Sink, Powell and Squirrel Prairie watersheds.
The presentation, led by Therese Power, the district’s engineering and watershed management section manager, explained the district’s process for building watershed management plans using lidar terrain data, desktop watershed evaluations, high-water marks from residents and model calibration. Power said the district is not creating new flood plain but mapping low-lying closed basins more precisely: “We’re simply mapping more accurately these flood plain areas that have always been there.”
Why it matters: residents who live downhill from new development told the council they have seen increased flooding and groundwater changes after truckloads of fill were moved into subdivisions such as…
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