{"id":268516,"date":"2026-05-12T20:58:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T20:58:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/268516\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T20:58:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T20:58:19","slug":"city-councilman-rory-diamond-pledges-study-of-hogpen-creek-sediment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/268516\/","title":{"rendered":"City Councilman Rory Diamond pledges study of Hogpen Creek sediment"},"content":{"rendered":"

At low tide, the dock off Williams \u201cJake\u201d Jacobs\u2019 backyard on Seven Pine Island on Hogpen Creek is sitting on silt.<\/p>\n

Around 10 a.m. Monday, the water level was at about 6 inches.\u00a0 Homeowners on Hogpen Creek have been trying for years to get the city to share the cost of removing the sediment buildup \u2014 a problem city officials say is from natural processes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery single day I see the backyard and how terrible this situation is becoming,\u201d Jacobs says.<\/p>\n

Now, some residents want the Jacksonville City Council to fund a study to determine the cause.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At a town hall on May 6, District 13 City Council member Rory Diamond committed to securing funding for a watershed analysis of the creek.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Diamond told a crowd at the town hall, hosted by the nonprofit civic group Beaches Watch<\/a>, that he will file a budget amendment in August when the Council Finance Committee reviews Mayor Donna Deegan\u2019s budget to add a line item for the Hogpen Creek study.<\/p>\n

\"\"Jacksonville City Council member Rory Diamond tells a crowd at the Beaches Watch town hall meeting May 6, 2026, that he\u2019ll file a budget amendment in August to fund a sediment study on Hogpen Creek. | Mike Mendenhall, Jacksonville Today<\/p>\n

In addition to the sediment, Jacobs says there is erosion, bank collapse, channel souring and an odor-laden discharge coming from the Sandalwood Canal upstream. He also alleges runoff from development in the area, and work on San Pablo Road completed last year has also made the water flow issues worse, he says.<\/p>\n

The manatees that once swam up to the dock when his family purchased the home in 2022 on Pine Island Drive in the gated are now gone, he says.<\/p>\n

Jacob raised the issues at the Beaches Watch meeting. He says he\u2019s trying to keep public officials focused on the water flow in Hogpen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He hopes a study can shed light on those claims.<\/p>\n

\u201cShouldn\u2019t most people care about their environment? It really is an environmental crisis. I really don\u2019t like this concept that this is just a rich guy trying to get his boats out,\u201d James told Jacksonville Today. \u201cThis is a real environmental crisis, and it\u2019s got to be dealt with.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The City Council dissolved a special taxing district<\/a> in late 2024 meant to fund the dredging to keep the creek\u2019s depth at 5 to 7.5 feet. It levied an additional tax on homeowners in the district between San Pablo Road and the Intracoastal Waterway with the goal to raise about $4.5 million over 10 to 15 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Although some residents supported the district, the $4,500 extra per year came as a surprise to many others. Years later, Diamond still says he was not involved<\/a> in creating the taxing district, despite his name being on the legislation that authorized it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Diamond repeated that position at Beaches Watch, saying the bill was filed in 2023 while he was deployed on assignment with the U.S. Army.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Hogpen Creek between San Pablo Road and the Intracoastal Waterway on May 11, 2026, at low tide. | Mike Mendenhall, Jacksonville Today<\/p>\n

Many residents of Seven Pines Island, Holiday Harbor and Ketch Cove were glad to see the extra tax burden<\/a> of the special dependent district go. But they say the creek\u2019s sediment and environmental issues persist.<\/p>\n

Jacobs thinks dredging would \u201cjust be a Band-Aid\u201d and hopes a watershed study will determine the root of the problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just looking for a fair shake,\u201d Jacobs told Jacksonville Today. \u201cIf 80% of the problem is being caused naturally, I fully expect to be paying for 80% of it. But this seems much more complicated and not natural. And it\u2019s all the more reason why I\u2019ve been pushing so hard since last August to get a proper study done.<\/p>\n

Hogpen not a city responsibility?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Phil Perry, the city\u2019s chief communications officer, tells Jacksonville Today that part of the issue with putting public dollars toward dredging is the city policy. The city will commit to a deepening if there are city-owned docks on the waterway but not privately owned like those on Hogpen Creek.<\/p>\n

Residents who reach out to the Deegan administration about the sediment backup have been directed back to Diamond\u2019s office to work with him on securing funding for the promised study.<\/p>\n

The administration provided three emails from September 2025 through April 7, 2026, from Diamond\u2019s office responding to constituents with a promise to introduce the budget amendment for the study.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Perry said the city\u2019s position has not changed since the debate over the creek began \u2014 work completed on the Sandalwood Canal in 2007 has not contributed to the increased sedimentation. The administration says it\u2019s not responsible for the maintenance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Sandalwood Canal project was completed 19 years ago, and the design incorporated several weirs along the canal, which would tend to retain sediment and prevent it from flowing downstream. Immediately following completion of the project in 2007, the City undertook a dredging operation in case any unexpected soil transport occurred in the waterway during construction,\u201d Perry said in an email.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe City has not performed work to Sandalwood Canal nor Hogpen Creek since that time. Thus, we expect that any ongoing siltation since project completion, as with many waterways, results from natural processes, such as stormwater flowing from adjacent properties that carries soil into the waterway.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mayor Donna Deegan will not include the study in her annual city budget proposal that she delivers to council in July. But Perry says that the administration will execute it, if Council adds it as a budget line item.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Asked what the city will do if the study finds public infrastructure is partly to blame for the low water levels, Perry said it was too soon to say.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is up to the councilman to fund a study in the budget, but the administration will act on it if passed by City Council,\u201d Perry said. \u201cIt\u2019s too early to answer hypotheticals about what a prospective study might find.\u201d<\/p>\n

James also wants a study to examine whether rebar and concrete he says were left behind from JEA\u2019s Intracoastal Waterway Electrical Improvement Project<\/a>, completed in 2018, could be contributing to changing water flow and depth in \u201cpreviously navigable areas\u201d of Hogpen Creek.<\/p>\n

JEA Public Information Officer Karen McAllister says the utility has not fielded any direct complaints about the project\u2019s effect on the watershed.<\/p>\n

Paying for the study\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not completely clear how much a study will cost. Diamond said last week that he expects it to cost around $300,000, while Perry says the city does not have an official estimate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Residents at the meeting asked Diamond to pay from the $1 million in discretionary funding he and the other 13 distinct council members each received as part of the city\u2019s Community Benefits Agreement in the stadium deal with the Jacksonville Jaguars.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Diamond told the Beaches Walk crowd that his $1 million has already been committed to other projects. For a Hogpen Creek study, that means the money would have to come from a different revenue source.<\/p>\n

Before money for a study makes it into the final budget, the appropriation must be debated and approved by the council\u2019s Finance Committee. Diamond currently sits on that committee, but the next council president will be able to pick their own committee members in June, which may or may not include the Beaches council member.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the town hall, Diamond said he was confident he could get the Hogpen budget amendment through, but he cautioned that there are other Jacksonville communities experiencing issues similar to residents on Hogpen.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere is my struggle as your councilman. There are like 20 of those across the city, where these different creeks in the city are backed up. And there\u2019s development happening everywhere, so they\u2019re all having this silt issue,\u201d Diamond said. \u201cAnd so most of these neighborhoods are dredging on their own.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At low tide, the dock off Williams \u201cJake\u201d Jacobs\u2019 backyard on Seven Pine Island on Hogpen Creek is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[6104,43323,1563,88005,116,4040,118,117,99028,103695,115],"class_list":["post-268516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-beaches","tag-distribute","tag-environment","tag-government-politics","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-city-council","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jaxtdy1","tag-mayors-office","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}