Alafia River Latest Site For Tampa Bay Water Skirmishes; Sustainability Discussion MIA

Tampa Bay Water has applied for and has received approval from the Southwest Florida Water Management District’s Governing Board for a permit to tap the remaining water available from the Alafia River.
Wednesday the Polk Regional Water Cooperative’s board voted to challenge the permit, though the board also agreed to allow its staff to sit down with everyone involved and try to work something out if possible.
If it isn’t possible, the legal tab for a permit challenge would come to an estimated $240,820, board members were told.
Whether this turns into a water war of simply a minor skirmish will be clearer by this fall.
This action is the latest in a series of disputes between Polk County and its coastal neighbors over future water supplies that stretches back decades.
It also highlights the lengths to which the cooperative will go to meet the water demands of future growth, no matter what the cost.
While it costs only $1.5 million to provide 1 million gallons a day from the Upper Floridan Aquifer, the traditional source of water for more than a century, it will cost an estimated $35 million to provide that same amount from surface water, board members were told.
At some point this is all going to be reflected in higher water rates for existing customers even though they did not create the demand to feed the growth machine that is behind this endeavor.
How much higher the rates will go is to be determined, but one wonders whether at some point this could lead to a debate on the limits of sustainable growth in Polk County,
So far our political leaders, many of whose campaigns rely on contributions from the development industry, have been pretty quiet on this topic.
Meanwhile, according to Eric DeHaven, the cooperative’s executive director, the goal of Wednesday’s vote was to allow PRWC to keep its options open for developing so-called alternative water supplies. That means anything besides pumping water from the pretty well tapped out Upper Floridan Aquifer.
DeHaven acknowledged Wednesday that tapping the Alafia and Peace rivers–if they can still obtain a permit by then–is decades away and would be considered only after the current projects involving tapping the salty Lower Floridan Aquifer reach their capacity.
He said since the headwaters of both rivers lie in Polk County, it only seems fair that Polk is entitled to some of the river water.
What was not discussed Wednesday because a decision is so far in the future is what it would cost to build yet another pipeline to draw water from somewhere downstream of the county line to get that water to treatment plants in Polk County and to distribute it from there.
The cooperative is already scheduled to spend millions of dollars on the already approved pipeline system that will connect the Lower Floridan wells to municipal plants.
Hold on to your wallets.