‘Instantaneous’ pond drain leads Winter Springs to spend up to $1.5 million to fix

The Winter Springs City Commission agreed Monday to spend about $180,000 to hire an engineering firm to assess the damage to Tuskawilla Crossings’ drainage pond, which failed in late August.

The retention pond was built in 2021. It sits between Tuskawilla Crossings’ residential development, the Cross Seminole Trail and Lake Jesup. The runoff going into the lake was designed to be filtered so that it doesn’t further pollute Lake Jesup. 

But the berm’s failure means untreated stormwater is moving from the pond into the wetlands and into Lake Jesup. 

“This seems extreme,” said City Commissioner Cade Resnick in an interview with Oviedo Community News. “This is a malfunction in the design or the development. Somebody somewhere made a mistake. This is too young a pond to blow out like that.” 

On Monday, the city agreed to spend $180,000 with Pegasus Engineering to investigate why the wall of the pond, known as a berm, failed, and to recommend fixes. The money will also pay for creating bidding documents to get a contractor on board to do the repairs. 

But $180,000 could just be the tip of the iceberg of costs to fix the pond, as city officials heard at Monday’s meeting. Ultimately, repairs could cost $1-1.5 million. 

“The big, big tell, the big red flag, was Hurricane Ian,” said Winter Springs Mayor Kevin McCann at Monday’s meeting. “Our stormwater systems are inadequate. … This needs to move to the top of the priority list.”

Hurricane Ian was not the cause of the pond failure, consultants told the city. Hurricane Ian hit in 2022, and the pond failed around Aug. 31, 2023. There was no major storm when the pond failed, although the city did get several inches of rain around the time it collapsed. 

When asked how the city would pay for the repairs to the pond, the response was simple: the penny sales tax for infrastructure. That sales tax is up for renewal in 2024. 

McCann said this is an example of why voters should consider continuing the penny sales tax. 

“This is a reminder of what those taxes are used for,” McCann said. “How does the city use the penny sales tax dollar? This is it.”

Still, others on the Commission openly questioned whether there were design or construction flaws with the pond that led to the 30-foot wide hole that appeared on Aug. 31. City Attorney Anthony Garganese said, “It’s too soon to decide if the city should file a legal action against anyone.” 

“It depends on the facts,” Garganese continued. “Whether it’s a design defect [or] an act of god. It’s premature to determine. It could be a combination of factors. What we do know is the city accepted this pond after it was constructed and under the platt, the city agreed to maintain the infrastructure.” 

David Hamstra with Pegasus Engineering LLC, which consults with the city, declined to speak with Oviedo Community News after the meeting. But at Monday’s presentation, he told commissioners that in his experience, berm failures tend to happen quickly. 

And it may not be something that could be spotted ahead of time. 

“When berm failures happen, they happen instantaneously,” Hamstra said. He noted that nearby homeowners say the pond drained in about 30 minutes. “Every berm failure I’ve dealt with in Central Florida, they happened for whatever reason quickly.”

Resnick said he would like to see city officials be able to regularly inspect the 100 or so retention ponds the city is responsible for. Interim City Manager Philip Hursh said he agreed. 

“Right now, we have a very shallow bench of people,” Hursh said. “Realizing that, I know we need to address this, with the fourth generation sales tax. I would prefer it. But we don’t have the staff right now to do it.” 

Pegasus Engineering was awarded the contract to investigate the pond berm failure fully, and to create the bidding documents to get a contractor to make the repairs. It’ll take six to nine months to complete the design and permitting process, and ultimately about a year before the city can hire a contractor and start construction. The St. Johns River Water Management District will also have to approve any repairs to the pond. 

As Pegasus pointed out in the documents to the city: “It is very likely that additional deficiencies will also be discovered after engineering design commences.”