RED ALERT: Florida Water Utility with Only Week’s Supply Left (HeraldTribune)

Jan.19, 2009 in Public Works, Water Crisis, Water Industry, Water Management

(Jan. 19, 2009, Herald Tribune)

With little more than a week’s worth of drinking water left in its storage wells, the Peace River water utility will begin pumping ground water from the Floridan aquifer to supply its 250,000 customers.

Also, tougher lawn watering restrictions and a renewed emphasis on conservation are expected for Southwest Florida when the region’s water managers meet next month to discuss the strain a continuing drought is putting on water resources.

The Peace River/Manasota Regional Water Supply Authority normally taps the Peace River to serve its customers in Charlotte, DeSoto and Sarasota counties. The utility also pulls water from the Peace to fill reserves in its expanded underground storage wells.

But there was not enough water in the river this summer to fill up the wells. The water plant stored 450 million gallons of water at a facility that can hold more than 6 billion gallons.

“We had a fairly normal summer,” said Mike Coates, the Peace River utility’s water resources director. “Then the rain machine turned off in September and usually September is a fairly wet month.”

Though water managers frown on drawing ground water from the aquifer, which has been depleted by overpumping, they have given the Peace River utility emergency authorization to do so.

“Ground water would be our last resort, but we’ve got the public health and safety issue and we still need to ensure drinking water for the public,” said Robyn Felix, a spokeswoman for the Southwest Florida Water Management District, which regulates water resources in 16 counties, including Sarasota, Manatee and Charlotte.

Tapping the mineral-rich Floridan could decrease the quality of water that makes it to the region’s taps, but Coates said he does not anticipate a noticeable difference.

Area water suppliers also are likely to shift water around, as they did last year.

Manatee County, with a 1,800-acre reservoir, is the region’s water supply mainstay. Manatee’s capacity can offset shortfalls in Charlotte County and potential strains in Sarasota County by sending 10 million gallons of water per day through a network of pipelines.

“We’ll give them everything they need,” said Bill Kuederle, chief operator for the Manatee County Water Treatment Plant. “We’re down a little bit from last year, but I don’t foresee us having any problem maintaining our customers and what they need down south.”

Sarasota gets 7 million gallons daily from Manatee. The county also takes 5 million gallons a day from the Peace River, but that is likely to end temporarily, Coates said.

And an expansion at the county’s Venice Gardens water treatment plant will add about 2 million gallons of water per day to the regional system.

The Englewood Water District also has excess water to send to the Peace River plant.

An expansion of the Peace River plant should be completed later this year, allowing the authority to double the amount of water it can draw from the Peace during high, rainy season flows. It will also double treatment capacity and add 6 billion gallons of water storage in reservoirs, potentially ending three years of water supply strains.

Felix said the water management district is likely to toughen area water-use restrictions when it meets in February. The restrictions would shorten the window of time on the days people are allowed to legally irrigate lawns.

The district has already tightened restrictions in the Tampa Bay area, where drought conditions are worse.