The agency that regulates water use wants to set a series of public meetings to determine if there is any way to prevent a repeat of this month's dry wells and rash of sinkholes after berry farmers pumped relentlessly to protect their crops.
The governing board of the Southwest Florida Water Management District may set the first date of the public workshop at its meeting this morning in Brooksville.
The board meeting begins at 9 a.m. at the district headquarters on U.S. 41 south of Brooksville.
The board will also receive a lengthy report on the pumping that took place during a prolonged series of freezing nights that caused groundwater levels to plummet.
The falling groundwater - 60 feet in some places - dried up private wells and is suspected of triggering scores of sinkholes and depressions, including one that shut down three of four lanes of Interstate 4 for four days.
The water management district issues pumping permits for strawberry farmers, including how much can be pumped in 24 hours to coat the crops in a layer of ice to protect plants and berries from freezing.
Those limits, based on recommendations by researchers at the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences at the University of Florida, say berry farmers need 6,800 gallons an hour for each acre of berries.
Farmers mined millions of gallons from the aquifer during nearly a dozen freezing nights.
The water management district wants to explore whether there are alternatives to pumping as crop protection.
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