Project Objectives

The City of Cape Coral proposes to raise the crest elevations of five of the several weirs in the Gator Slough fresh water canal system to create additional storage availability for wet season storage and dry season draw-downs. One potential problem associated with this proposal is higher tail-water elevations in the drainage system, which may result in increased flooding. The objective of this storm water model is to evaluate the canal system enhancement plan of raising crest elevations at Weir numbers 19, 15, 14, 13 and 11 under design storm events. Interconnections between basins 6 and 7, basins 7 and 9, and basins 9 and 10 were not included in the model since preliminary modeling show low gradients between the areas. Thus inclusion of these interconnections would provide little additional model performance enhancements.

As agreed at the planning meeting between the South Florida Water Management District and City of Cape Coral on October 16, 2000, the Storm Water Management Model developed by XP-Software (XP-SWMM2000) was used in this study to simulate a scenario of one-foot higher elevation for the selected weirs. The simulated water levels then will be compared to the elevations of the existing structures such as roads, septic tanks, and residential houses to determine whether the elevated weirs cause any additional flooding. The three design storm events designated for this project are the 5-year 1-day, 25-year 3-day, and 100-year 3-day storm events.