Protect 30A — The South Walton Stormwater Plan

Coastal dune lakes exist in only a few places on Earth — and South Walton holds one of the world's finest collections. Each one sits at the bottom of its own watershed. Whatever we put on the land ends up in the lake. This plan is how we take responsibility for that.

01 · West End — Topsail Hill

Fuller Lake

The wildest of the fifteen — kept quiet on purpose.

Fuller Lake sits at the far western end of the dune lake chain, inside the private Coffeen Nature Preserve next to Topsail Hill Preserve State Park. Before World War II, Robert Bushnell bought roughly 2,000 acres here, and the Army Air Corps soon took it over as a secret missile test site. When the war ended, the family chose preservation over development, founding Four Mile Village. Dorothy Coffeen called the land "a haven for all God's creatures." The Sierra Foundation cared for it from 1976 to 2003, followed by the Coffeen Land Trust.

Fed only by rain and groundwater, the 40-acre lake is rated the third most pristine dune lake in Walton County. Water lilies spread across dark, tea-colored water; alligators, nesting bald eagles, ospreys, and a heron rookery all call it home, with marsh connecting it to Morris Lake next door. Because so little development touches its shore, Fuller Lake shows what every dune lake once was — and what clean, careful stormwater management can still protect.

📍 Western end of 30A, beside Topsail HillCoffeen Nature Preserve · guided tours only

02 · West End — Topsail Hill

Morris Lake

The wild one — reachable only on foot.

Morris Lake sits at the quiet western edge of South Walton, tucked inside the 1,640-acre Topsail Hill Preserve State Park near Santa Rosa Beach. The roughly 75-acre lake is one of several coastal dune lakes the park protects, ringed by ancient dunes, coastal scrub, and pine flatwoods. Hikers on the Morris Lake Nature Trail can still spot remnants of a World War II–era missile testing program, including an old iron transport track — a reminder that even this wild shoreline carries layers of human history.

With no boat access and the only way in on foot or by park tour, Morris Lake is among the least disturbed dune lakes on the entire 30A corridor — a living baseline for what these globally rare waters should look like. Its outfall still opens to the Gulf regularly, mixing fresh and salt water in a rhythm few places on Earth share. Keeping stormwater runoff out of lakes like this protects that rhythm, and the birds, dunes, and quiet that depend on it.

📍 Topsail Hill Preserve State Park, Santa Rosa Beach🥾 Hike-in only · ~75 acres · outfall opens to the Gulf

03 · West End — Topsail Hill

Campbell Lake

A freshwater jewel kept wild behind Topsail's dunes.

Campbell Lake sits deep inside Topsail Hill Preserve State Park, ringed by ancient dunes and old-growth longleaf pines that turpentine workers once tapped from the late 1800s into the mid-1900s. When developers eyed this stretch of coast, conservationists and the state stepped in — beginning in 1992, the land was purchased for preservation, and the lake has stayed wild ever since. At roughly 100 acres, it stays almost entirely fresh and rarely opens to the Gulf — unusual among dune lakes, which typically trade water with the sea.

Because Campbell Lake sits entirely within protected parkland, it shows what every dune lake could be: clear water dotted with lilies, carnivorous pitcher plants along its edges, and pines mirrored on a still surface. Visitors reach it by trail or park tram, and kayaks and paddleboards can be rented to glide across it. Its clean watershed is no accident — it is what happens when runoff never reaches the water. Protecting the other fourteen lakes means giving them the same chance.

📍 Topsail Hill Preserve State Park, Santa Rosa Beach🌿 ~100 acres · rarely opens to the Gulf

04 · Dune Allen

Stallworth Lake

A hidden glow at 30A's quiet western edge.

Stallworth Lake rests at the quiet western end of Scenic 30A, where the Dune Allen community meets the wild dunes of Topsail Hill Preserve State Park. The lake bears an old family surname, and its shores tell the modern story of South Walton in miniature: part state park, part private neighborhood, part open beachfront. In 2003, the Trust for Public Land helped protect nearly three acres of beach as an addition to the Stallworth Lake Preserve — a buffer for the lake's fragile dune ecosystem, funded with help from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and Walton County.

Like all of South Walton's coastal dune lakes, Stallworth periodically opens to the Gulf, mixing fresh and salt water into a rare brackish habitat found in only a handful of places on Earth. With no public lakeside access, most people meet it from the sand, walking the beach as the water glows at dusk. That seclusion is part of its magic — but runoff doesn't respect property lines, and keeping stormwater clean upstream is how this hidden lake stays a treasure.

📍 Western Scenic 30A, beside Topsail Hill Preserve State ParkBeachfront preserve buffer protected in 2003

05 · Dune Allen

Allen Lake

Where the morning mist lifts last.

Allen Lake rests on the north side of Scenic Highway 30A, at the center of the beach community that shares its name. Dune Allen was developed in the 1940s by Eric and Jean Allen, and the lake has carried the family name ever since. It is one of a cluster of dune lakes strung along this western stretch of 30A, neighbors to Oyster and Stallworth Lakes. Generations of locals have known its shoreline best from the dock at Stinky's Fish Camp, which looks out over the lake's western edge.

Coastal dune lakes exist in only a handful of places on Earth — Madagascar, Australia, New Zealand, Oregon, and right here in Walton County — and Allen Lake is one of just fifteen named lakes along our 26 miles of coast. Its calm water shelters wading birds and marsh plants, and herons still stalk the shallows at first light. A small lake has little room to absorb what the land sends it: keeping runoff clean and slow is how we keep Allen Lake alive.

📍 North of Scenic 30A, heart of Dune Allen Beach🌿 One of South Walton's 15 rare coastal dune lakes

06 · Dune Allen

Oyster Lake

Where the lake reaches out to meet the Gulf.

Oyster Lake sits in the Dune Allen community at the western end of Scenic 30A, one of South Walton's fifteen rare coastal dune lakes. Local tradition holds that its name comes from the oyster-shell shape of its shoreline. Covering roughly 22 acres, the lake lies just steps from the Gulf, separated by a low sand berm that periodically breaches — its outfall sending tannin-tinted water winding across the white beach to mingle with the surf. A pedestrian bridge crosses near the outfall, and CR-30A passes right along the lake's edge.

Because dune lakes collect whatever the surrounding land sheds, Oyster Lake tells the stormwater story plainly: major storms and rapid growth along 30A once strained its health and degraded its outfall. The response has been hopeful — restoration work replaced a road culvert with a bridge, rebuilt and stabilized the outfall channel with native vegetation, tackled invasive plants, and added water quality monitoring. The restored banks held firm when Hurricane Michael passed nearby in 2018. Cleaner runoff keeps that recovery going.

📍 Dune Allen, west end of Scenic 30A≈22 acres · intermittent Gulf outfall

07 · Blue Mountain Beach

Draper Lake

A hidden mirror at the quiet edge of Blue Mountain.

Tucked into the west end of Blue Mountain Beach, Draper Lake is the quiet one — the only one of South Walton's fifteen named coastal dune lakes ringed almost entirely by private neighborhoods like Old Florida Beach, The Retreat, and Draper Lake Coastal Village. Most people meet it in passing: a flash of still water from Scenic 30A, or from the steel bridge on the Timpoochee Trail, where the lake's northern reach slips beneath the bike path. Residents paddle it from small docks at first light and last.

Coastal dune lakes exist in only a handful of places on Earth, and Walton County holds the world's densest collection. Draper trades fresh water with the Gulf through an outfall that opens across the beach after heavy rains — a delicate brackish rhythm that university researchers have studied here for years. But every rooftop and roadway nearby drains toward this basin. Managing that stormwater is how a lake this rare stays this clear.

📍 West end of Blue Mountain Beach, along Scenic 30A🌉 Best public view: the Timpoochee Trail bridge

08 · Blue Mountain — Grayton

Big Redfish Lake

Late light, lily pads, and redfish off Blue Mountain Beach

Big Redfish Lake takes its name from the red drum that have long cruised its brackish waters, and it anchors the quiet stretch of coast between Blue Mountain Beach and Grayton Beach. At roughly 22 acres, it reaches from near Redfish Village across Scenic 30A toward the Gulf, paired with its smaller sister, Little Redfish Lake, just to the east. Tucked behind homes and pines along Blue Lake Road, it has stayed one of the most secluded of South Walton's fifteen coastal dune lakes.

When heavy rains raise the lake, it spills across the beach to the Gulf — the intermittent outfall that makes coastal dune lakes one of the rarest ecosystems on Earth. Mullet, bream, and redfish share the water with ospreys, herons, and egrets, and a small county easement trail off Blue Lake Road lets paddlers and anglers slip in quietly. Because everything that washes off nearby streets and yards drains toward the lake, keeping runoff clean is how this one stays wild.

📍 Blue Mountain Beach, trail access off Blue Lake Road~22 acres · sister lake to Little Redfish

09 · Blue Mountain — Grayton

Little Redfish Lake

Small twin, sheltered water, redfish in its name.

Tucked beside its larger twin, Big Redfish Lake, at the eastern edge of Blue Mountain Beach, Little Redfish Lake is one of the smallest of South Walton's fifteen coastal dune lakes — local accounts put it at roughly ten acres. The name is said to come from the redfish that move through its brackish water. Scenic 30A crosses directly over the lake, and in recent years Walton County replaced the old culverts there with a bridge, reconnecting the lake's northern and southern lobes so water can move naturally again.

Coastal dune lakes exist in only a handful of places on Earth, and the small ones are the most fragile. Little Redfish mixes fresh and Gulf water through an intermittent outfall across the beach, sustaining the fish and birds that depend on that brackish blend. With homes close on every side and 30A crossing its middle, every driveway and street here drains somewhere — and that somewhere is the lake. Clean runoff is how a ten-acre lake survives a build-out.

📍 Eastern edge of Blue Mountain Beach, west of Grayton BeachTwin to 22-acre Big Redfish Lake, just across the dunes

10 · Grayton Beach

Alligator Lake

Grayton's quiet little lake, waking with the egrets.

Tucked along the western edge of Grayton Beach, Alligator Lake sits between the Gulf Trace neighborhood and the protected lands of Grayton Beach State Park. One of the smaller of South Walton's fifteen named coastal dune lakes, it straddles Scenic Highway 30A, with nearly all of its shoreline wrapped in state park land. It shares the park with two sister lakes, Western Lake and Little Redfish Lake, and the name is honest — like most of our dune lakes, alligators do call it home. Reaching it takes a short walk from the beach or a scramble off 30A.

Coastal dune lakes exist in only a handful of places on Earth, and Walton County holds the only ones in Florida. When Alligator Lake rises high enough, it breaches the dune and trades water with the Gulf, mixing fresh and salt into the brackish blend its fish, wading birds, and marsh plants depend on. A lake this small has little room for error: whatever washes off nearby roads and rooftops ends up here. Keeping runoff clean keeps the dawn over this water as clear as it looks today.

📍 Western edge of Grayton Beach, off Scenic 30A🌿 Shoreline mostly within Grayton Beach State Park

11 · Grayton Beach

Western Lake

Where the dunes hold a mirror to the sunset.

Western Lake sits at the heart of Grayton Beach State Park, framed by the old beach village of Grayton — laid out in 1890 and one of the earliest settlements on this stretch of coast — and the newer community of WaterColor. The park opened to the public in 1968, and its boardwalks, campsites, and trails have circled the lake ever since. The view across its dark water to the white dune ridge, crowned by salt-sculpted scrub pines, may be the most photographed scene on all of 30A.

Coastal dune lakes exist in only a handful of places on Earth, and Western Lake ranks among the largest in the Florida Panhandle. Its brackish water — rainfall and groundwater mixing with Gulf surges through an intermittent outfall — supports fish, wading birds, and shoreline plants found almost nowhere else. Kayaks and paddleboards are available to rent right in the park. What flows off our streets and yards flows here; keeping runoff clean keeps this view alive.

📍 Grayton Beach State Park & WaterColorSecond-largest dune lake in the Panhandle

12 · Seagrove Beach

Eastern Lake

Morning water where the pines meet the Gulf.

Eastern Lake gives Seagrove Beach its quieter side. One of Walton County's fifteen named coastal dune lakes, it sits just off Scenic 30A, ringed today by more homes and docks than most of its sister lakes — a measure of how beloved this stretch of coast became as Seagrove grew. The lakeside Old Florida Fish House serves dinner on its shore, and across the highway, Point Washington State Forest's first trail system — the Eastern Lake Trail — still carries the lake's name through miles of pine forest.

Coastal dune lakes exist in only a handful of places on Earth, and Eastern Lake shows why they are worth protecting. Its brackish, naturally tea-dark water periodically breaches the dunes near the Eastern Lake Road beach access, spilling into the Gulf and drawing salt water back in — a rare exchange that sustains a one-of-a-kind ecosystem. Paddlers launch at the county park and glide all the way to the sand. In one of 30A's most built-up corridors, every yard of runoff matters here.

📍 Seagrove Beach, off Scenic 30A🛶 Public paddle launch at Eastern Lake Park (Lakewood Drive)

13 · Deer Lake State Park

Deer Lake

Where the boardwalk ends, the wild still begins.

Tucked between Seagrove Beach and Watersound, Deer Lake is the quiet one — a coastal dune lake protected almost entirely within the state park that bears its name. Florida acquired the first parcels from the St. Joe Paper Company in 1996 through the Preservation 2000 conservation program, eventually setting aside more than 1,900 acres of dunes, pine flatwoods, and lakeshore before the building boom reached this stretch of 30A. The result is the corridor's closest thing to a time capsule: a dune lake that looks much as it always has.

That protection shelters rare life: Gulf Coast lupine, pitcher plants, spoonflower, and one of Florida's largest populations of Curtiss' sandgrass, plus nesting sea turtles, snowy plovers, and the Choctawhatchee beach mouse along the shore. Most visitors know the park by its long boardwalk, which crosses the dunes to the beach with the lake shimmering nearby. A landscape this intact is exactly what clean stormwater practice upstream is meant to keep that way — and why runoff from the growing corridor around it still matters here.

📍 Scenic 30A between Seagrove Beach & Watersound🌿 1,900+ acres preserved since 1996

14 · Watersound

Camp Creek Lake

Quiet teal water folded into high white dunes.

Camp Creek Lake stretches roughly seventy acres through the Watersound Beach area, reaching from the Gulf shoreline north under Scenic Highway 30A toward the southeastern edge of Deer Lake State Park. Like all fifteen of South Walton's coastal dune lakes, it formed thousands of years ago as wind-built dunes sealed off low basins behind the beach. Much of its shoreline now sits inside the Watersound and Seacrest communities, which keeps the lake remarkably quiet — a long ribbon of dark, tea-toned water tucked behind high white dunes.

When heavy rain raises the lake, it can break through the beach and pour into the Gulf — a rare exchange of fresh and salt water that lets bass and flounder share the same brackish lake, alongside the wading birds that feed at its edges. Paddlers can launch from the public dock at the Camp Creek Lake access in Seacrest. Because the lake collects whatever the surrounding land sheds, untreated runoff from rooftops and roads ends up here — keeping this water clean starts upstream.

📍 Watersound Beach & Seacrest, east of Scenic 30A≈70 acres · public kayak & paddleboard launch

15 · East End — Camp Helen

Lake Powell

The grandest of them all, wide as the sky.

Lake Powell anchors the east end of the dune lake chain, straddling the Walton–Bay county line at Camp Helen State Park. The land's story runs deep: Robert and Margaret Hicks built a lakefront lodge here in 1931, and from 1945 to 1987 the property served as a company beach resort for employees of Avondale Mills, an Alabama textile company — workers won their week at "Camp Helen" by lottery. Florida purchased the property in 1996 and opened it as a state park the following year.

At nearly 800 acres, Lake Powell is the largest coastal dune lake in Florida and North America, and it carries an Outstanding Florida Waters designation. When its outfall opens to the Gulf, salt and fresh water mix into rare brackish habitat where saltwater and freshwater species swim side by side. Kayakers, paddleboarders, anglers, and birders share its open water — and every drop of runoff from surrounding rooftops and roads ends up here. Protecting this lake means keeping that water clean at the source.

📍 Camp Helen State Park, Walton–Bay county line≈800 acres — largest coastal dune lake in North America · Outstanding Florida Waters

The water is rising faster than the fixes.

Every storm tells the same story.

Three steps. Local money stays local. Built on Florida law.

Phase 1 — A 30A benefit unit that funds projects fast

What it delivers

How it's grounded

Phase 2 — A dedicated stormwater benefit area

What it adds

How it's grounded

Phase 3 — An independent local district (our option, our choice)

What it offers

How it's grounded

Four promises behind every dollar.

Raised here, spent here

Pay for benefit, not politics

Decided in public

State dollars stretch ours

From this summer to shovels in the ground.

Community input, mapping & engineering

Public notice published

County adopts the intent resolution

Project roll, mailed notices & public hearings

Assessment roll certified

First projects funded 🎉

Fifteen lakes the rest of the world doesn't have.

Fuller Lake

Morris Lake

Campbell Lake

Stallworth Lake

Allen Lake

Oyster Lake

Draper Lake

Big Redfish Lake

Little Redfish Lake

Alligator Lake

Western Lake

Eastern Lake

Deer Lake

Camp Creek Lake

Lake Powell

Twenty-plus years of water quality — right here in our lakes.

Explore the data yourself

What neighbors are asking.

This only works if 30A shows up.

Send a note of support

Show up & speak

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