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Utilities To Tap Into Additional Water Resources

News Channel 8 file photo by PAUL LAMISON (2008)

Crews work near cracks at the Bill Young Reservoir in east Tampa in July.

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By NEIL JOHNSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 16, 2009

The water management district will let utilities tap additional sources of water as a stubborn lack of rain continues to strain supplies.

The Southwest Florida Water Management District has issued two emergency orders granting Tampa to take water from Sulphur Springs to augment its reservoir on the Hillsborough River and for Tampa Bay Water to expand its withdrawals from the Tampa Bypass Canal.

The move will allow Tampa to add about 3.2 million gallons a day from Sulphur Springs to its reservoir. The reservoir is the primary source of water for the 656,000 residents the city of Tampa supplies, inside and outside city limits.

The reservoir has dropped to a level not usually seen until the dry season's end in May. With long-range forecasts continuing to call for rainfall lower than normal, there is no expectation the reservoir will rise before summer rains begin in June.

The other order will let Tampa Bay Water take more from the bypass canal than the regional utility's permit allows under normal conditions.

The utility, which provides wholesale water to public utilities in Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, St. Petersburg and New Port Richey, as well as augmenting Tampa's supply, will be able to take an additional 10 million gallons a day from the canal.

The regional utility can continue drawing water from the canal as long as enough remains for its flood control structures to function properly.

Tampa Bay Water's main source during the dry season is also running low. During the winter and spring, Tampa Bay Water relies heavily on its 15 billion gallon reservoir in southern Hillsborough.

Because of scant summer rainfall, an earlier start to the dry season and cracks in part of the reservoir that kept Tampa Bay Water from filling it, the storage facility is expected to run dry in March.

That would force Tampa Bay Water to increase pumping at wellfields in Pasco and northern Hillsborough and likely exceed permitted pumping levels at the wellfields.

In January residents in Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco used an average of 227 million gallons of water a day.

National Weather Service forecasters expect drought conditions in the Tampa Bay area and around most of Florida to grow worse over the next three months.

Flow in the Hillsborough River, Tampa's main source of water, is about 21 percent of what it should be in the middle of February. The Alafia River, a source for Tampa Bay Water, is about 19 percent of normal.

This follows three years of rainfall below normal. Since the start of 2006, rainfall in the region is 26.5 inches below normal. That is equal to missing 6 months worth of rainfall during those three years.

Reporter Neil Johnson can be reached at (813) 259-7731.

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