SARASOTA, Fla — Mike Scarborough has lived in his home backing up to Phillippi Creek for over 40 years.
And while he is lucky to have never had flooding inside his own home, he tells Tampa Bay 28 reporter Blake Phillips that his neighbors are not as lucky.
Watch report from Blake Phillips
"Everybody that I know that lives on the creek all agrees, the creek needs to be dredged," Scarborough said.
While Scarborough's home sits on higher ground, he placed brown duct tape on his deck showing how high the water rose during Hurricane Debby.
"I'm lucky right here. This is the high part of the street. And we have never gotten water in the house," Scarborough said.
Hurricane Debby brought flooding into homes that weren't even as close to Phillippi Creek as Scarborough's house.
Now, county officials are moving forward with the dredging project, starting first between Tuttle Avenue and Beneva Road.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued Sarasota County its long-anticipated permit on October 8, authorizing work along nearly 9,000 linear feet of Phillippi Creek.
Bob Quartermaine, Sarasota County's stormwater division director, who started in August, said the county identified critical areas with the largest sediment accumulation to begin the work.
"We identified critical areas that had some of the largest areas of sediment accumulation and we started there," Quartermaine said.
According to the permit, workers will dredge the creek to four feet below mean low water, removing more than 49,000 cubic yards of sediment — roughly enough to fill 15 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Hundreds of thousands of tons of sediment have already been removed from the middle of the creek.
"Ensuring that Phillippi Creek drains as efficiently as possible is something that was expressed immediately when I started," Quartermaine said.
Quartermaine also tells Blake Phillips that the county has established a maintenance program to prevent similar large-scale projects in the future.
"Sedimentation in the creek is something that we have to manage continuously and the county commissioners have given us direction to ensure that we have a maintenance program in place," Quartermaine said.
The project is currently under its first phase with a six-month timeline.
Phase two still needs to be voted on before an official start date can be determined. If all goes to plan, future dredging projects will be smaller-scale and cost much less.
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