The City of St. Petersburg will begin dredging Bartlett Lake next week. This is part of a larger initiative to reduce flooding for south St. Pete residents.
Stormwater from Basin C, which encompasses 3,535 acres, drains into Lake Maggiore. It then flows through Salt Creek and Bartlett Lake before entering Tampa Bay.
A majority of the area near Lake Maggiore is less than three feet above sea level. As a result, neighborhoods such as Cromwell Heights, Old Southeast, Harbordale and Bayou Highlands are frequently flooded by storms.
“Bartlett Lake, over the years, has gained so much sediment,” the City’s engineering and capital improvements director Brejesh Prayman explained. “We need to clean that up because it doesn’t have the volumetric flow to allow that continuous stormwater to flow out through the system.”
He added that dredging has other benefits as well.
“The lake will not have high nutrients, trash and debris,” Prayman said. “So, we are discharging cleaner stormwater.”
With an approximate $1.5 million cost, the initiative will take roughly 200 days to complete. About 23,000 cubic yards of debris will be removed. The effort will be financed by federal Community Development Block Grant Mitigation funds (CDBG-MIT) and a Florida Department of Environmental Protection Resilient Florida Grant.
Additional projects are in the works including the construction of a pump station on approximately three acres of land near 4th Street and 18th Avenue South.
“Everything generally flows by gravity,” explained Prayman. “So, a pump station essentially allows you to mitigate the tide as the tide rises and drops.”
As a result, the asset can help control water levels in Lake Maggiore even where heavy rain occurs, he added. This can reduce flooding on properties.
Construction on the approximately $30 million investment is scheduled to begin later this year. It will take about two years to build. He explained that the preliminary design process is still underway and a public engagement meeting is planned for next month.
The St. Petersburg government also plans to install a sluice gate on the same property to “control the flow of water” and “mitigate sea level rise or surge which can affect the efficiency and stormwater drainage capacity of Salt Creek,” according to the City’s website.
Prayman added that the City will be creating a natural wetland, which will feature native vegetation, as well. This area on the property will include a trail and “educational elements” to teach the public about the benefits of water quality projects.
The Basin C initiative has been accelerated under Mayor Ken Welch’s St. Pete Agile Resilience Plan. This was created as a response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton in 2024.
After St. Petersburg officials determined that Basin C was an area of concern, a study was conducted as part of the City’s Stormwater Master Plan effort in 2018 to “develop a series of projects” that could reduce flooding during major weather events, according to the municipality’s website.
“The improvements will be compounding on each other,” Prayman said. “We are really trying to be proactive and focus on the benefits for our community.”
