PANAMA CITY — Panama City Public Works is working on a large drainage pond, pump and walking track on Lisenby Avenue just behind K-Mart.
The project is paid for with an $830,000 grant from the Northwest Florida Water Management District, which includes the walking track. The pond — .4 acres in size — is intended to slow the flow of water to Lake Caroline and eventually into the Bay. Public Works Director Neil Fravel is expecting the pond to work as a filter for sediment and nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorous that can create algae in Lake Caroline.
“It will get the velocity down,” Fravel said of the flowing water. “It will make these lakes better.”
The addition of the irrigation pump should assist that filtration process with it displacing some of the water from the larger pond into a smaller dry pond to the east, where much of the runoff from K-Mart is currently flowing.
Eventually maintenance of the walking track will be the responsibility of leisure services, although the cost is being covered by the grant. The grant did not cover the purchase of the property, which the city bought about two years ago when Lake Caroline was being dredged.
Fravel is expecting the project to be completed at the end of the April.
