Fenholloway Project: Reviving a River, Sustaining an Ecosystem, Building Partnerships, 1997 Environmental Conference Proceedings

By the mid-1940% Taylor County, Florida, experienced significant economic and population decline due to the loss of a large lumber industry. In response, the citizens of Taylor County petitioned the state legislature to designate the Fenholloway River as an industrial stream in an attempt to attract industrial or manufacturing interests to the area. The county leaders recognized that the intermittent and minimal flow characteristics of the Fenholloway River would not allow the assimilation of even trivial industrial discharges. In 1947, the Florida legislature granted Taylor County its request. Procter & Gamble became interested in the area and purchased an existing sawmill site at the town of Foley and about 600,000 acres of surrounding forest land in 1951. The Foley pulp mill was built by 1954 to produce dissolving kraft pulp, and a second pulp line was added by 1958. With the emergence of the Clean Water Act and its implementing regulations by the mid-1970’s, the Fenholloway River retained the industrial use designation--a Class V stream under Florida’s classification system. The Clean Water Act, however, requires that surface waters that do not meet the “fishable/swimmable” goals of the Act (Class III classification by Florida standards) must undergo study every three years to determine if an upgrade in classification is technically feasible. This study process is known as a Use Attainability Analysis (UAA). Despite the industry-leading improvements in wastewater quality achieved by the Foley mill since the 1960’s, the flow limitations of the Fenholloway River have prevented its reclassification to Class III. Previous UAA’s confirmed this status. By the late 1980’s the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) developed a heightened interest in reclassifying Florida’s only remaining industrial stream. As a result, the UAA, completed in 1994, represented one of the most extensive assessments ever undertaken. Unlike previous UAA’s, this assessment went well beyond the traditional study boundaries and included study elements such as the relocation of the discharge point and river flow enhancement. The consideration of these extraordinary measures resulted in the identification of several technically and economically viable changes, known as the Fenholloway Project, which will allow the river to achieve Class III status. The Fenholloway River is scheduled for reclassification in December, 1997, which allows time to obtain the complex permits necessary to implement the Fenholloway Project. The Foley mill was purchased by Buckeye Cellulose in 1993. Buckeye played a leading role in the UAA and successful reclassification efforts.