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Tampa Bay Water OKs 5-year plan to fix reservoir

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By NEIL JOHNSON

njohnson@tampatrib.com

Published: June 16, 2009

CLEARWATER - Lamenting that they had no choice, the board of Tampa Bay Water agreed Monday to fix its cracked, flawed reservoir in eastern Hillsborough County.

Fixing the 15 billion gallon reservoir, which is the linchpin of the water supply in the dry season, will take five years, possibly cost $125 million and likely increase water bills.

The board of Tampa Bay Water agreed with staff recommendations on steps to fix the cracked C.W. Bill Young Regional Reservoir and on a selection process for a company to do the work.

Selecting the design and the contractor is expected to take three years. The repair would take two years once work begins, putting the reservoir out of service for two dry seasons.

The $125 million is a rough estimate. The board won't know the actual price until it open bids in three years.

The reservoir cost $147 million to build. The utility spent $4.1 million filling the cracks with grout and searching for the cause. This year, $325,000 is budgeted for filling the cracks, but the cost could reach $1 million.

Tampa Bay Water has filed a federal lawsuit against the engineering company that designed the reservoir, the contractor and the firm that supervised construction.

Any money recovered from the suit would be used to defray the repair cost. Residents of Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco counties and cities of Tampa, St. Petersburg and New Port Richey would cover the balance through increases in water bills.

If Tampa Bay Water has to pay $125 million for the repair, water bills would go up about 13 cents for every 1,000 gallons. For a household using 10,000 gallons a month, the increase would be $1.30 monthly.

Those increases would not show up on water bills until 2011 when the board hires someone to make the repairs.

Cracks cover about 40 percent of the reservoir side and surface. They will spread if nothing is done, said Helen Bennett, a vice president for the engineering company Black and Veatch, which Tampa Bay Water hired to unearth the cause for the cracks.

Cracks in the soil cement, a mixture of dirt and cement that covers the sides and bottom of the reservoir, were noticed in 2006, and utility officials said then they were normal, expected and only cosmetic. The cracks kept spreading and enlarging, and Tampa Bay Water asked engineers to determine the cause.

The soil cement is intended to prevent erosion of a wedge of soil covering a membrane that holds water in the reservoir.

After at least two years of investigation, engineers determined the wedge of soil is saturated. The soil layer does not drain as quickly as the reservoir when water is drawn out. That puts pressure on the soil cement and causes the cracks, Bennett said.

The problem, now confined to two areas of the reservoir, will grow.

"It's just a matter of time before you have to repair all the areas," she said.

The reservoir is sound and is not in danger of leaking, said Gerald Seeber, Tampa Bay Water's general manager.

Last summer, the utility couldn't fill the reservoir to its capacity of 15 billion gallons because of the cracks, and it went dry at the end of March, eliminating a source that provides the area with 40 percent of its water during the dry spring months.

When full, the reservoir can provide 66 million gallons of water a day.

In May, workers finished temporary repair of the cracks, and Tampa Bay Water officials say the reservoir can be filled this summer if there is enough rain. Last week, the state agreed to let Tampa Bay Water fill the reservoir to capacity this summer.

The utility will continue to put grout in cracks that form; otherwise, the state would not allow the reservoir to be filled. If left alone, the cracks would endanger the membrane that holds in the water.

Utility managers did not relish the prospect of spending the money but agreed it is necessary.

"I'm terribly disappointed in how this occurred," said Hillsborough County Commissioner Mark Sharpe, chairman of the Tampa Bay Water board. "But we've got to get this right."

Pinellas County Commissioner Karen Seel did not like the prospect of increasing water bills for residents.

"I feel bad for them and wish we did not have to do it. I don't think we have any choice but to fix it," she said after the meeting.

POSSIBLE FIXES

Three possible solutions have been proposed for repair of the cracked lining of the C.W. Bill Young Regional Reservoir operated by Tampa Bay Water:

•Add a drainage system to the wedge of dirt between the soil cement surface a membrane that is the bottom layer;

•Remove the dirt wedge and place a new soil cement layer on the membrane;

•Or add soil cement to weigh down the existing soil cement covering.

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

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