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Tampa Bay Water says the acreage is least expensive and the least threat to the environment.
By CRAIG PITTMAN, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published February 16, 2002
The best place to build Tampa Bay's second major desalination plant is next door to Florida Power's plant at the mouth of the Anclote River, according to Tampa Bay Water officials.
The staff of the region's largest utility ranked that 14-acre site as the first choice out of 12 locations around north Pinellas and Pasco counties for construction of the next plant to convert saltwater into drinking water.
The staff recommends the water board approve that selection Feb. 25 and allow negotiations to start with the power company for use of the property. They hope to have the desal plant operating by 2008.
The plant would be designed to produce 25-million gallons of drinking water a day, just like the desalination plant being built now next to the Tampa Electric Co. plant in Apollo Beach on the shores of Tampa Bay.
The first plant is supposed to be in operation by next year and is expected to reduce the amount of water pumped out of the ground from Pasco and Hillsborough County well fields from 158-million gallons of water a day to 90-million by 2008.
Even though the first plant is only half built, Tampa Bay Water officials are already working on this one and a small one in Pinellas Park producing 5-million gallons a day from brackish water pumped from 14 wells. Pinellas Park officials approved a zoning change for the property last week.
The hunt for the site of the next major desalination plant began two years ago. After four public meetings, a bus tour and a mass mailing, the utility staff is convinced that the proposed site next to the Anclote power plant would be the least expensive and the one least likely to damage the environment, according to a Feb. 13 memo from Tampa Bay Water's science and engineering director, Don Lindeman.
It "offers a power source nearby and seawater for potential makeup water," Lindeman wrote. "Additionally, co-location with the power plant provides an economical and potentially environmentally attractive method of blending with the power plant's cooling water discharge system. This site is cleared of vegetation and is away from residential developments."
To produce 25-million gallons of freshwater, the plant will need to take in about 50-million gallons of seawater a day. That would require the daily disposal of about 25-million gallons of salty concentrate, which is about twice as salty as seawater. The discharge could be near the shore or at the end of a 10- to 13-mile-long pipeline in the Gulf of Mexico -- a more expensive alternative.
Cost is a major concern with building a plant on the gulf. The cost could be three times the $110-million price tag on the first desal plant. Construction alone is estimated at $204-million, in part because the higher salinity of gulf water makes it more expensive to treat. Laying pipes into the gulf could add another $123-million to the project, for a total of $327-million.
And the Southwest Florida Water Management District, which helped pay for building the first plant, recently notified Tampa Bay Water officials that the agency does not want to pay for the second one. Instead Swiftmud officials said they would prefer to put money into increasing the use of treated wastewater, known as reclaimed water.