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Waterstudy 'surprising' to Iorio

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By MIKE SALINERO

msalinero@tampatrib.com

Published: November 9, 2009

TAMPA - Hillsborough County commissioners embraced consolidating all the county's public water systems last Wednesday, tentatively approving $400,000 to study whether a merger has merit.

The only problem is that Tampa, whose participation is crucial to any such agreement, hasn't signed on.
Tampa officials say they were surprised when they heard about the commission's unanimous vote Wednesday to authorize County Administrator Pat Bean to find $400,000 for a feasibility study. The move seemed to be on a fast track: County Attorney Renee Lee had already identified the law firms that would conduct the study as Broad and Cassel and Nabors, Giblin & Nickerson, along with consultant Robert Ori.

The next day, Mayor Pam Iorio questioned how the county could authorize a feasibility study without discussing it with city administrators. The study would put a monetary value on Tampa's water system assets, something that can't be done without the city's cooperation.

"If the commission has already approved a firm to conduct the study," Iorio said in an e-mail, "this would be surprising since the city has not seen a scope of work nor have we had any discussion with anyone who works for county administration."

Iorio said that melding large, urban utilities into one water authority is a "complex issue," and that the county should hold off on any study until there is a "mutual understanding of goals, process and cost."

Tampa Councilman Charlie Miranda, who read about the commission action in a newspaper article, said he doesn't think Iorio and the city council will ever consent to selling the city's water system. Tampa has lower water rates than the county and what he calls a "compact" system which serves more than 98 percent of city residents.

The county, on the other hand, has large areas that don't have public water and sewer service. And Hillsborough's water delivery network is separated into two pieces with Tampa's in the middle.

"Why should the city of Tampa - it has 99.5 percent of all the people living in the city on water and sewer - go out to an area that's 10 times as large and subsidize that area with city taxpayers?" Miranda said.

Other city council members were willing to take a closer look at the county's proposal. Councilman Joseph Caetano said he favors consolidation if it reduces "duplicative government," but he fears the water authority would be another wasteful bureaucracy.

Councilman John Dingfelder said city water customers, who enjoy lower rates than county residents, would have to be protected under any consolidation plan.

"But I think everything is worth exploring," Dingfelder said. "If there's an opportunity to save money, then I'm proud the county is looking at it."

Consolidation is the brainchild of Commissioner Jim Norman, who says that linking the four water systems - Hillsborough, Tampa, Plant City and Temple Terrace - will increase efficiency and lower water and sewer bills.

Norman also fears if the local governments don't consolidate, the county could suffer a replay of the early 1990s "water wars" when St. Petersburg and Pinellas County pulled so much water out of well fields in Hillsborough and Pasco counties, that lakes dried up and sinkholes developed.

"The bottom line is, if you don't want to cooperate and lower water rates and save taxpayers money, don't be part of it," Norman said Friday. "I'm trying to come up with a solution that delivers water at a lower rate for this entire county."

In selling the idea of the feasibility study to commissioners, Norman said the city officials he had discussed consolidation with were "willing to take the next step and go forward."

However, the city officials who met with Norman said they were noncommittal about the idea.

"We really haven't formulated what we're doing," said Steve Daignault, public works and utilities administrator. "We're just gathering information at this point."

City Attorney Chip Fletcher, who also met with Norman, said Tampa officials are willing to "entertain the concept" of consolidation, but are far from endorsing the idea.

"There's a long way to go between here and deciding that consolidation makes sense," Fletcher said.

When he was in private practice, Fletcher said he worked on several utility consolidations. He said the savings from such combinations were "marginal."

Norman said Friday that Fletcher and Daignault had told him they were willing to move forward with consolidation, but the city didn't have the money to pay for an evaluation of the water systems. The county is willing to pay for the study, Norman said, and recover the money from the water authority after it buys the four public systems under a consolidation plan.

"Unless you have somebody start evaluating all the systems," Norman said, "you have no information to share with all the parties that it's a good idea."

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

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