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Suncoast Pasco News

Positive Direction

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THE SUNCOAST NEWS

Published: July 30, 2008

We criticize Tampa Bay Water, the Clearwater-based regional drinking water utility to which Pasco County and New Port Richey belong, when it has problems. So we thought we'd point out an area in which it is headed in the right direction.

In briefing the Pasco County Commission last week, Tampa Bay Water General Manager Gerald Seeber said the utility now gets only 67 percent of the drinking water it distributes to its members - the others are Pinellas and Hillsborough counties and Tampa and St. Petersburg - from ground-water sources, i.e. well fields such as Cross Bar Ranch and Cypress Creek, in north-central Pasco and the Starkey, southeast of New Port Richey.

Tampa Bay Water once got all of its water from these well fields in Pasco and Hillsborough. It was taking so much water from them the surrounding environment was suffering, residents and regional regulators said.

Tampa Bay Water responded and now it gets roughly a third of its potable water by treating water from surface sources such as Tampa Bay and area rivers. The desalination plant that treats some of that water and the reservoir that holds river water have had or are having their problems. Tampa Bay Water's decreasing dependence on ground-water, however, is a positive we hope continues to extent technically and financially feasible.

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