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Alafia Standards May Rise

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By MIKE SALINERO, The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 18, 2007

Updated: 12/17/2007 11:23 pm

CLEARWATER - It's now up to the state whether 42 miles of the Alafia River should be held up to higher water-quality standards.

Tampa Bay Water board members voted Monday to ask the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to recommend the river be upgraded from Class 3, suitable for fishing and recreation, to a Class 1 water body. The state's highest classification is meant to protect rivers and lakes that are sources of drinking water. Changing the water to Class 1 would mean tougher limits on pollutants in the water.

The board acted despite objections from Hillsborough County commissioners Al Higginbotham and Mark Sharpe, who represent the county on the water board. The commissioners questioned Tampa Bay Water's assertion that reclassification will not impose river cleanup costs on industries or public sewer plants that discharge into the Alafia.

Sharpe and Higginbotham said they support reclassifying the Alafia but wanted the application delayed for 60 days to resolve differences between Tampa Bay Water and county scientists over pollutant levels in the river.

The dispute is over whether the Alafia can meet Class 1 standards for fluoride, a chemical associated with the phosphate industry. Mosaic, the state's largest phosphate company, has large mining operations around the river's headwaters.

Tampa Bay Water scientists say the river segment up for reclassification is meeting Class 1 limits for fluoride. County scientists disagree, saying the river exceeded the fluoride limits in 46 percent of the tests done by Tampa Bay Water. That's enough for the state DEP to designate that part of the Alafia as "impaired" for fluoride, which could force industries and sewer plants that discharge into the waterway to spend millions of dollars on better pollution-control equipment.

"I'm not so confident that DEP won't look at this information and say we've got an issue," Sharpe said.

Board chairwoman Susan Latvala told Sharpe the reclassification process likely will last two years, during which the state will study the data and listen to opinions from both sides.

"If you have additional concerns, you can go to DEP," she said.

Hillsborough County Commissioner Jim Norman was not at the board meeting but said afterward that he has asked the county attorney's office to look into whether Hillsborough can recover costs associated with the reclassification from Tampa Bay Water member governments. Those include Pasco and Pinellas counties, and the cities of Tampa, St. Petersburg and New Port Richey.

"If this changes, we're going to be in a situation where we're going to have to spend millions of dollars to do things differently," Norman said. "I don't mind doing that, but I want all the member governments to share in the costs of those improvements."

Reporter Mike Salinero can be reached at (813) 259-8303 or msalinero@tampatrib.com.

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