The Political Whore

For decades, Tampa has faced a conundrum; every day tens of milions of gallons of treated wastewater is dumped into Tampa Bay, wasted in a word. In St. Petersburg, treated wastewater is used for residential lawn watering, thanks to the foresightful construction of special water lines in neighborhoods. But Tampa’s attempts to re-use its wastewater hasn’t met with the same success.

So now the Tampa City Council wants to skip the whole lawn watering step and move right to drinking the highly treated sewer water. It voted yesterday to ask voters in a 2010 referendum if they want to build a system to deliver the potty product back to their drinking faucets.

From Bay News 9:

Councilman Charlie Miranda is all in favor.

“This will solve our situation for water in this area for at least 50 years,” Miranda said.

The concept isn’t new.

In the 1980s, Tampa initiated a program to treat waste water. The program failed to get support.

Miranda said the potable wastewater system could cost as much as $200 million.

So the question is: Would you drink it?

Just released from Tampa City Hall is Mayor Pam Iorio’s memo supporting a planned City Council vote tomorrow to lift the Bay area’s toughest lawn-watering ban that prohibited anything but limited hand-watering of lawns.

The memo:

I am pleased to report that our reservoir level is currently at 21.8 feet, and Hillsborough River flows are 152 million gallons per day at Morris Bridge. In my May 19th memorandum to you, I said we would support a relaxation of the water restrictions if the reservoir exceeded 21 feet and rate of flow in the river exceeded 60 million gallons per day.

Since rains have continued throughout the Hillsborough River watershed and the two thresholds placed on our water supply have been exceeded, I am recommending that our existing emergency water use ordinance be amended to adopt the Southwest Florida Water Management District’s Phase IV modified level, effective June 1, 2009. With your concurrence, an amended ordinance will be walked onto City Council agenda at the Thursday, May 28th meeting.

The Phase IV restrictions will:
• Allow customers to irrigate with sprinkler systems once a week on their designated watering day.
Watering hours for most customers are Midnight to 4 a.m.; however, hours are specified for property
sizes and irrigation methods.
• Limit non-turf irrigation by low volume methods to three days per week.
• Limit pressure washing to that conducted by commercial businesses.
• Prohibit residential car washing.
• Apply 78 degree requirement in water-cooled buildings to government facilities and common areas only.
Again, I would like to thank you for your vote in adopting very tough water restrictions that saved hundreds of millions of gallons of water.

By Ben Luongo
PoHo contributor

Ben Luongo is a USF political science graduate student. He will be graduating this spring.

Tampa’s 15 billion gallon reservoir is now basically drained and the rainy season is months away.  According to Tampa Bay Water spokeswomen Michelle Robinson, Tampa is now going to have to rely on both the underground water aquifer, which could increase the risk of sinkholes, and the small of amount of desalinated water from the plant.

When people think of Florida they might find it unlikely that it would suffer from a water shortage.  However, after decades of development even a state surrounded by water is prone to shortages, and Florida is not the only one.  According to a report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, 36 states are projected to suffer water shortages in the next five years.  Water shortage is a problem felt at local levels, like the city and state, but also at national and international levels.  This means that efforts to remedy water shortages are going to require both state and federal solutions.

However, on a more individual level, there is stuff that we as Tampanians can do to reduce the amount of water that we use on a daily basis. Here are some easy and cheap examples:

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From Craig Pittman at the Times:

As of this week, Tampa Bay Water has virtually drained its 15 billion-gallon reservoir. From now until the summer rainy season, it must rely on its two remaining sources of water: its sometimes troubled desalination plant and the dwindling supply in the underground aquifer.

“It’s going to be a long couple of months waiting for the rainy season,” Tampa Bay Water spokeswoman Michelle Robinson said Friday.

The regional utility expects to again ask the Southwest Florida Water Management District to impose the toughest watering restrictions in history on Pinellas, Pasco and Hillsborough county residents. Swiftmud turned down that request last month – but that was before the reservoir ran out.

Judging by the picture in this article in the Times, there is something green growing in the Hillsborough County drinking-water reservoir…….it looks like grass. Hey, my pastures are looking kinda rough with this drought and I do live almost next door…. I wonder if they would consider leasing it out as grazing land since even if we had water it isn’t so good at holding any?

The article is about Swiftmud voting not to tighten water restrictions……….drought? What drought? Drink up and more importantly BUILD UP! The conversation that nobody really wants to have is that while local and state politicians are scrambling to weaken rules for building and raping the environment all in the name of economic development (think developer welfare) what they are really avoiding addressing is the severe water shortage we are in.

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