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What A Difference A Decade Makes

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By Carl  Orth | The Suncoast News

Published: July 26, 2008

NEW PORT RICHEY -- The compliments were flowing like water as commissioners observed the 10th anniversary of Tampa Bay Water this week.

Commissioners were gushing about progress made during the regional wholesale utility's inaugural decade and the bullish outlook for the future.

And a familiar face to many in Pasco, former New Port Richey City Manager Gerald "Jerry" Seeber, has taken the helm as general manager of the Clearwater-based TBW.

No rosy glow of nostalgia was placed on the old "water wars" between water-poor Pinellas County and its biggest city, St. Petersburg, and its water-rich neighbors in Pasco and Hillsborough counties.

Those water-resource skirmishes are mostly a thing of the past now that Pinellas, Pasco and Hillsborough counties and New Port Richey, Tampa and St. Petersburg were bound together at TBW member-customers.

For years Pasco County and New Port Richey officials complained their concerns over water resource issues were largely ignored by TBW's predecessor, the West Coast Regional Water Supply Authority. The Legislature set up Tampa Bay Water to replace WCRWSA is 1998.

In an earlier bid to defuse the water wars, Pinellas County turned over control of large well fields it operated in Pasco and Hillsborough counties to WCRWSA. New Port Richey ceded its ownership of the Starkey Well Field to the authority as well.

"I'm glad those days are behind us," Commissioner Michael Cox, who grew up in Pasco, said of the pre-TBW days.

"TBW is a success story" for its 2.5 million customers in the area, Commissioner Ann Hildebrand said. Hildebrand, who has been on the County Commission since 1984, is one of Pasco's two representatives on the TBW board. Commission Chairman Ted Schrader is the other.

Businesses locating to the area first check for stable sources of water like TBW can provide, Schrader observed.

"I remember when we were being sucked dry," Commissioner Pat Mulieri commented.

For years many Pasco officials and residents said heavy pumping from the Cross Bar Ranch and Cypress Creek well fields, two Central Pasco well fields Pinellas County surrendered to WCRWSA control, were drastically reducing lake levels and causing private wells in the area to go dry.

For years Pinellas and St. Petersburg officials attributed these problems to drought, not well field pumping.

Indeed, TBW has overseen the reduction of groundwater pumping from an average of 150 million gallons of water per day in 2002 to about 83.4 million gallons per day now, Seeber reported.

The Starkey Well Field, in the Seven Springs-Trinity area, has benefited, Seeber pointed out. Water levels in the Floridan aquifer have gone up 5 to 7 feet in the area near the Starkey wells. The Floridan aquifer, a subterranean layer of water-bearing limestone, is the traditionally source of much of the region's potable water.

Tampa Bay Water's C.W. Bill Young Regional Reservoir played a big part in reduction of groundwater pumping, Seeber noted. The reservoir in southern Hillsborough County holds up to 15.5 billion gallons of water.

The reservoir's level has dropped to only 3 billion gallons after a dry spell, so TBW now is replenishing it.

A desalination plant in southwestern Hillsborough County a private consortium operates for TBW now provides up to about 10 percent of the region's drinking water needs.

Groundwater still supplies about two-thirds of drinking water to the region. By 2012, the goal is to reduce groundwater supplies to 45.5 percent of drinking water, with an equal share from surface water and the rest from desalination.

More alternative sources might be developed, Seeber said, such as reclaimed waste water and brackish groundwater desalination.

Carl Orth can be reached at 727-815-1068 or corth@suncoastnews.com.

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