The City of Cape Coral actively manages one of the largest surface water management systems in Southwest Florida, composed of many miles of fresh and saltwater canals, interconnecting culverts, irrigation withdrawal facilities, and 30 major water control structures. Like other areas in Southwest Florida, the City of Cape Coral has an overabundance of freshwater in the rainy season and a lack of water in the dry season, often leading to severe irrigation restrictions mandated by lowered water levels in the freshwater canals and groundwater. A key recommendation in the City’s stormwater master planning was to install a new weir at the existing, uncontrolled outfall to Yellow Fever Creek from Midsummer Canal. It was proposed that the new weir would raise the control elevation and reduce freshwater outflows during the dry season, preserving a precious resource.
Johnson Engineering completed the design, specifications, and permitting through SFWMD and USACE for a new primary outfall structure, Weir 29. The project is currently nearing the end of construction. Performed entirely in-house, the design included a fixed-crest concrete weir with two slide gates with motorized actuation, remote monitoring, and remote operation. The Supervisor Control and Automatic Data Acquisition (SCADA) system was designed to be compatible with the existing remote monitoring and operating system currently used by the City of Cape Coral.
At the beginning of the detailed design phase of this project we critically reviewed the conceptual design provided and found that the downstream culverts under the roadway were shown to be the controlling factor, not the proposed weir. This allowed the weir design to be reduced from 68 feet to 20 feet, resulting in considerable cost savings for the City while providing the same level of service.
Our team looks forward to assisting the City on future stormwater projects. For more information, contact Jordan Varble, PE at mkt@johnsoneng.com.
