The Battle of Peace River may not happen after all.
Last week Brian Armstrong, Southwest Florida Water Management District’s executive director, attended the Polk Regional Water Cooperative meeting and proposed a way that Polk County officials may get the water they think they need to fuel future growth without going through an expensive, protracted legal fight with the Peace River Manasota Water Supply Authority over water allocations in the Peace River.
I finally got a copy of his presentation and did some additional research.
This is what I know so far.
The reason Polk officials are looking for alternative water sources is because the traditional water sources have been pretty well tapped out. This is the result of a combination past bad practices and increased demand caused by population growth. Polk’s population is projected to reach 1 million in about 20 years. Twenty years ago it was about half a million.
That water shortage led to the creation of something called the Southern Water Use Caution Area, an area that covers a good chunk of Polk County and some neighboring counties where groundwater withdrawals are limited to prevent further stress on the aquifer and to prevent the further inland march of saltwater intrusion.
The proposed solution to the water supply shortage is something called the South Hillsborough Aquifer Recharge Program.
This program involves pumping treated sewage underground in a network of wells drilled in coastal areas to form a freshwater bubble to contain the advance of saltwater.
That, the program’s designers claim, will allow more freshwater withdrawals inland than area allowed now under the SWUCA restrictions.
It will also reduce nutrient-laden discharges into Tampa Bay from the sewer plants, which advances decades of work to restore Tampa Bay.
Armstrong proposes that Polk and Hillsborough officials work out a deal to share this water rather than trying to tap a highly undependable water source such as the upper reaches of the Peace or Alafia rivers.
However, the program is still in the early stages of development, so there’s no water to share ye. Polk utility officials are also exploring using unexplored sections of the Lower Floridan Aquifer for future water supplies and don’t project needing more water until farther in the future.
Meanwhile, one of the less-discussed effects of sea-level rise in Florida is its effect of increasing the rate of salt water intrusion over time. The higher the ocean’s surface, the more water pressure there will be bearing down on the lighter weight freshwater aquifer.
One Swiftmud study predicted saltwater intrusion may begin affecting wells as far inland as the outskirts of Brandon within coming decades.
That leads to the question of how large a network of freshwater recharge wells will be necessary to maintain the barrier against salt water intrusion.
Polk officials said they are willing to talk, but it is still unclear how much water might be available from this source and how much it would cost water customers.
Watch for more details.