JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – After three children have died in Jacksonville retention ponds in 90 days, the city is exploring ways to make those ponds safer with natural barriers, among other measures. But that’s only part of the effort to keep another tragedy from happening.
As Jacksonville City Councilwoman LeAnna Cumber told News4Jax on Tuesday, officials are also reaching out to developers to get their help making these bodies of water safer, particularly in residential communities where families with young children live.
“I think it’s a matter of talking to them,” Cumber said. “The conversations that I’ve had with developers, they are more than willing to do what it takes to make these ponds safe on their property.”
Cumber’s remarks come a day after a 4-year-old girl’s body was pulled from a retention pond in the Argyle Forest neighborhood. Her death followed two others: a 4-year-old boy with autism whose body was found in a Northside pond weeks ago and a 5-year-old boy with autism, who was found dead in a retention pond in April.
For months, city leaders have been grappling with ways to make ponds safer.
After Monday’s tragedy, Mayor Lenny Curry announced that city staff would stop mowing the vegetation around the 240 ponds it maintains as part of an effort to “create natural barriers to prevent future tragedies.”
“The idea is to make the pond as least attractive as possible to young people,” Jordan Elsbury, the mayor’s chief of staff, said Tuesday. “Look, I’m a father, I’ve got three young children. This is devastating to me as a father, devastating to the mayor as a father as well.”
Councilwoman Ju’Coby Pittman issued a statement, saying she and Cumber were exploring models in place elsewhere in Florida.
“Like my colleague said, the retention ponds are something that we need...to deal with the potential flooding issues that development can bring. So what we need to do now is just make sure that when we have developments, that we are building the ponds in such a way that they’re safe, and that we’re going back and looking at all the existing ponds and making sure that they’re safe,” Cumber said.
While mandatory fencing has been proposed as a potential solution to the problem, Cumber acknowledged they’re not a cure-all remedy.
“They are one option,” Cumber said. “There are probably places where fences make sense, there are certainly places where natural barriers could make sense and there are certain developments where vaulting makes sense. But I will say that due to these tragedies, we certainly are more focused these days, as we are approving developments, on what they’re going to do with retention ponds.”
She said barriers, natural or otherwise, will be a key step in preventing future drownings.
“As I’m talking to developers about new development, I’ve been encouraging them to either vault their retention ponds or make sure that they are fenced or that they have some sort of barrier,” she said. “Because, on top of all the education, we really need to focus on creating barriers around the ponds.”
Besides barriers, Cumber said outreach is key.
“The city has free swimming lessons (available) to anyone who’s over the age of 3,” Cumber said. “And the city’s looking into and working with disability services to look at ways that we can really reach out to the communities, particularly the communities that have children who have autism.”
The city offers free swimming lessons to any child 3 and older. Parents can sign up either by calling 630-CITY or visiting the city’s website at COJ.net. The city also has pond safety information posted online.