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Agencies Near Agreement To Limit Groundwater Pumping

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By MIKE SALINERO | The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 9, 2008

TAMPA - Back in the 1990s, most of the Tampa Bay area got its drinking water supply from groundwater. The result: dried up lakes and parched wetlands.

Now, state and regional water authorities are close to an agreement to prevent overpumping of groundwater well into the future.

Officials at Tampa Bay Water, the regional water supplier, and the Southwest Florida Water Management District say they have preliminarily agreed to hold groundwater pumping to 90 million gallons a day through 2020. That's a significant reduction from the 158 million gallons a day pumped in 1998, when Tampa Bay Water was created.

Longtime Hillsborough County Commissioner Jim Norman has pushed to hold the line on groundwater pumping at 90 million gallons a day.

"The reason we entered into Tampa Bay Water in the first place was they were pumping much more than they are today," Norman said. "Our wetlands were sucked dry. You had lakes in Hillsborough and Pasco that had docks out there, and there was no water where the docks are."

The limit on pumping will not be officially set until the end of 2010, when Tampa Bay Water and the management district sign a new water-use permit. The agencies have been meeting for six months with representatives of the member governments that make up Tampa Bay Water to hash details of the upcoming permit.

Tampa Bay Water supplies water to Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco counties and Tampa, St. Petersburg and New Port Richey. For 10 years, the utility has concentrated on building projects that supply water from sources other than the ground, including a desalination plant in Apollo Beach and a 9 billion-gallon reservoir in southeast Hillsborough.

Don Polmann, director of science and engineering for Tampa Bay Water, said the alternative water sources developed since 1998 and others on the drawing board will guarantee a reliable water supply for the region without increasing groundwater pumping.

"The 90 million-gallon-a-day total quantity for our well-field permit is something we have planned on long term," Polmann said. "Anybody who had a fear we're going to be asking for more, I think we can put that to rest."

During the 10-year period of the water permit, scientists with the water district will study whether the 90 million-gallon level is sufficiently low to restore the environment. Some scientists think Tampa Bay Water should strive to further reduce groundwater pumping.

"The rub is … we're going to have to make a call on whether we have to reduce pumping further to get additional environmental recovery out there," said Gordon Leslie, a geologist with the Hillsborough Environmental Protection Commission. "You're not eliminating environmental damage at 90; you're just holding a line on environmental damage and making it smaller."

Reporter Mike Salinero can be reached at (813) 259-8303.

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