St. Andrew Watershed

St. Andrew Bay Watershed

The St. Andrew Bay watershed is the only major estuarine drainage basin entirely within the Florida Panhandle.  As a SWIM waterbody, this watershed is defined as incorporating the interconnected St. Andrew, West, East, and North bays; St. Joseph Bay; the Sand Hills lakes region, and Deer Point Lake Reservoir, as well as the respective watersheds of each of these waterbodies.  St. Andrew Sound, formed by Crooked Island, is a smaller embayment located between St. Andrew and St. Joseph bays.  The overall surface water basin covers approximately 749,663 acres in six Florida counties.  Approximately 61 percent of the watershed is located in Bay County, with 20 percent in Gulf County, 9 percent in Washington County, 4 percent in Calhoun County, 4 percent in Walton County, and 2 percent in Jackson County.

Deer Point Lake Reservoir is located at the terminus of Econfina Creek, approximately eight miles north of Panama City.  The lake’s major tributary is Econfina Creek, and it discharges into North Bay.  The lake’s drainage basin covers 442 square miles within Bay, Washington, Jackson, and Calhoun counties.

St. Andrew, North, West and East bays have a combined surface area of approximately 59,568 acres.  Econfina Creek, through Deer Point Lake, provides the major freshwater inflow into the estuary, along with a number of smaller creeks.  East Pass and West Pass have provided surface water communication with the Gulf of Mexico at each end of Shell Island.  West Pass was artificially cut in 1934 as the primary navigation channel to the Gulf, while most exchange between the estuary and the Gulf historically occurred through East Pass.  Also prominent in the St. Andrew Bay estuary area are Tyndall Air Force Base (AFB) and the cities of Panama City, Panama City Beach, Lynn Haven, Springfield, Callaway, Parker, and Cedar Grove.  The primary land cover within the St. Andrew watershed is upland forests and wetlands (see St. Andrew Bay Watershed Land Use Map – 2004)

Additional information on this watershed is available in the St. Andrew Bay SWIM Plan.