MIDDLEBURG – Peter Perry never thought he’d miss hearing otters splashing in the Black Creek North Fork at 4 a.m. until the playful sounds disappeared.

Another resident along Lazy Acres Road used to feed heads of cabbage to manatees during mating season as they meandered along the creek in the springtime, but they haven’t been seen in four years.

The only sounds through the whispery moss-draped oaks are the low, rumbling groans of dump trucks hauling dirt in and out of the old North Fork Girl Scout Camp.

One of the common sites along the creek now is an orange-colored sludge that stains retaining walls and a thick layer of dust that layers lawn furniture, cars, boat docks and mailboxes.

The St. Johns River Water Management District tested the water and insisted it couldn't find any harmful run-off from the construction site.

Neighbors, however, disagree.  They said the creek hasn't changed dramatically.

North Fork Land Holdings is developing the 207-acre camp into a rental park for recreational vehicles. How many spaces will be available, how many will have access to Black Creek and what impact it will have on the creek and the surrounding environment remains unanswered to the residents who’ve called that portion of Black Creek home for years.

“What sad is, we don’t know what’s going on, and nobody seems to care,” said Mystique Matson. “It seems like it changes all the time. We can’t get an answer.”

Ancient City Land Management controversially bought the camp from Gateway Girl Scouts on Sept. 24, 2019, for $3.7 million with a plan to use a portion of the property for a camp and dig a 50-foot-deep, 60-acre borrow pit to sell the dirt to the Florida Department of Transportation for overpass buildup on the First Coast Expressway.

Gateway Girls Scouts sold the property because it owed a monthly $25,000 note after they obtained a $4.4 million mortgage.

The Clay County Zoning and Planning heard more than two hours of public comments from residents along Lazy Acres Road, Long Bay Road and Sunrise Farms Road, who argued the development would add dangerous heavy equipment traffic and threaten the creek and the local environment. Others said another borrow pit between Green Cove Springs and Keystone Heights led to water level drops in the Lake Region and forced the St. Johns River Water Management District to redirect water 17 miles from Black Creek’s South Prong to replenish Lakes Brooklyn and Geneva.

 The board voted, 7-0, to deny the request, although their vote was only a suggestion that would be passed to the Board of County Commissioners.

Ancient City also said it would turn the site into an outdoor recreation site and allow Gateway to use the facilities after it upgrades, said Ancient City CEO and President Dan Laubacker.

Until the two sides work out a new long-term lease agreement, Scouts will only be able to use the Jacoby Center near the camp's entrance, which has office and meeting space. Jacobs said that Scouts will likely also be limited to the Jacoby Center during renovations, which have not been scheduled.

The upgrades didn’t materialize.

It was zoned for 42 high-value homes built around a large manmade lake to create a unique upscale development, but that never materialized.

Ancient City then took a different approach by turning to the St. Johns River Water Management District and the Army Corps of Engineers to gain approval for its plan for a borrow pit by assuring they would abide by all water and environmental guidelines.

Much of the soil they attempted to sell to FDOT wasn’t suitable for roadway construction, so it was returned to the site.

Ancient City became North Fork Land Management, and a new plan was created to build a rental RV park. A plan filed with the Clay County Planning and Zoning Section calls for North Fork to create 174 RV sites using a new land development code amendment called the Rural Event Venue. That allows for conditional use as the site is at least 50 acres, there are at least 12 RVs for each acre, a minimum 50-foot buffer zone from surrounding properties, and nobody can stay in one location for more than 180 days. The North Fork property easily satisfies all of those requirements.

Paperwork filed with SJRWMD lists the number of possible RV sites as 453, while other documents use a figure of 242.

Attempts to contact Laubacker in 2019, 2020 and recently remain unsuccessful.

“We’re concerned that people are going to come here, and they're not going to treat it as their home,” said Rebecca Antweiler. “It’s not just a few people. We’re talking about 1,000 people.”

Matson said Black Creek has a no-wake zone from the Blanding Bridge to the RV park. She wonders how many of the out-of-town RV renters will abide by it.

“This is our home,” she said. “We’re already dealing with gray water. It’s supposed to be brown. The water management district tested it and said they weren’t concerned about the discharge. Again, it’s like nobody cares. We have these huge dump trucks speeding up and down the road all day, back and forth. Nobody’s listening to us. Nobody’s telling us anything.”