Back in the late 40's or early 50's, fill material was dredged from the bottom of Boca Ciega Bay to construct much of Redington Beach (such as fingers, Redington Drive, etc...).
The resulting fill was substantially clay-muck. This material will develop a perched false water table at very shallow depths and prohibit any drawdown or percolation of surface water such as standing rainwater in the swales. The swales were developed to allow rainwater to percolate back into the water table eliminating much of the pollutants such as oils from the streets, fertilizers, etc. The Town has installed these swales to comply with water quality standards, which are required by the U. S. Department of Environmental Protection and the Southwest Water Management District. The percolation of water in the swales do perform what they were intended to do, but unfortunately not as fast as they would if the Town was not built on dredged material at sea level.
Currently, the Town is working on having a feasibility study performed to find if there are possibly any solutions to help the drainage problems we have. We have also implemented recently a swale relief system which should be a considerable help.