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Trees could be swamped when water rises in Lake Geneva

Depth markers show the low water during the MotoSurf competition on Lake Geneva in Keystone Heights on Saturday, April 22, 2023. The dry shoreline in the background illustrates how far the water level has dropped in recent decades.
Dan Scanlan
/
WJCT News
Depth markers show the low water during the MotoSurf competition on Lake Geneva in Keystone Heights on Saturday, April 22, 2023. The dry shoreline in the background illustrates how far the water has dropped in recent decades.

A state water agency has agreed to spend $23.2 million filtering color and chemicals from water it will pipe from Clay County’s Black Creek to replenish aquifers beneath Keystone Heights’ shrunken lakes.

But before the water starts moving, a grassroots group that spent years advocating to replenish the area’s lakes is spotlighting a challenge that might undermine the expensive filtering’s benefits.

“There’s a forest in the lakebed now. A literal forest,” Vivian Katz-James, president of the Save Our Lakes Organization, told St. Johns River Water Management District board members at a recent meeting.

Read the rest of this story at the Florida Times-Union, a WJCT News partner.