Despite a new water plant and higher rivers, Starkey well field - not connected to the main system - cannot ease up.
By JAMES THORNER
Published May 18, 2003
Blessed with higher-than-normal rivers and freshwater streaming from a new seawater desalination plant, Tampa Bay Water has started to withdraw the straws that have been sucking billions of gallons from under Pasco County.
Compared to previous years, the regional water agency is pulling 40-million fewer gallons a day from Pasco's environmentally scarred well fields. At well fields such as Cypress Creek in Land O'Lakes, pumping has been cut, at least temporarily, to a relative trickle.
Yet one west Pasco well field, one of the county's oldest, hasn't benefited at all as alternate water sources come online.
Not only is Starkey well field getting no relief from desalination, it's supposed to be five years before officials extend a pipeline so west Pasco residents can drink water from places other than Starkey and the neighboring North Pasco well field.
"Until we are able to hook up the plumbing to deliver new reliable supplies of water, the communities will rely on Starkey to provide their needs," said Don Polmann, who runs the science and engineering department at Tampa Bay Water.
Pasco itself could be partly to blame for this state of affairs.
Wanting to fence off at least one well field from what it considered water hogs in Pinellas County, Starkey and North Pasco well field were never linked by pipeline to the greater regional water system.
That might have made sense when Hillsborough and Pinellas counties were accused of sucking Pasco dry.
But this month, against climatological expectations, rain-replenished rivers in Hillsborough are providing 33-million gallons of drinking water a day. And the desalination plant southeast of Tampa is adding another 29-million gallons to the mix.
In the past week, Starkey, which exclusively serves about 100,000 residents in west Pasco and New Port Richey, is producing 16-million gallons a day.
That makes it the champion water pumper among Pasco's six major well fields, which produce a combined 40-million gallons.
During the past year, Starkey's output has ranged from a September rainy season low of 10.3-million gallons a day to this month's 16-million.
"They really have to conserve in west Pasco. You're not like the rest of the people. You've only got Starkey," said Dr. Octavio Blanco, a veterinarian from Odessa who has been lobbying water officials to speed up pipeline construction.
"If this well field goes, you're drinking water out of trucks."
Polmann admits he is concerned about the lack of "flexibility in the plumbing system," but stresses that the Floridan Aquifer, from which Starkey pulls its water, is essentially a huge underground cistern without boundaries.
"There's plenty of capacity there, and there's certainly no danger of running out of water," Polmann said. "We have 17 wells in that system. Those are deeps wells into the Floridan Aquifer."
The other Pasco well fields are faring much better. Cypress Creek, permitted for 26.5-million gallons a day, is pumping only 1.4-million gallons a day this month. Cypress Bridge near Wesley Chapel, permitted for about 8.75-million gallons, is producing 2-million.
The South Pasco and Cross Bar Ranch well fields are also far below their averages, particularly considering early May is the height of Florida's dry season. As the rains recede, water consumption rises, mostly to supply lawn sprinklers.
Starkey well field, surrounded by Jay B. Starkey Wilderness Park between the Anclote and Pithlachascotee rivers, came online in 1976. Rancher Jay B. Starkey created the park with the intent to set aside a slice of old Florida that residents could enjoy forever.
But water-pumping critics such as Blanco insist Starkey's dream has been sacrificed to the region's housing-industry-driven thirst for water.
Wetlands have dried up from the suctioning action of the pumping. Animals have fled. Pine forests die from drought stress. Forest fires threaten what's left.
To help repair the damage, the Southwest Florida Water Management District has gone as far as to advocate temporarily lowering the banks of the Anclote River so the spillover would rehydrate wetlands. The plan, which is costly, hasn't been finalized.
"Can residents enjoy the park as Starkey wanted?" Blanco said. "This place is becoming a wasteland."
Linking Starkey well field to the Tampa Bay Water network hasn't sat atop the priority list. With desalination plants and reservoirs to build, water officials have spent tens of millions of dollars elsewhere.
A proposal to hook Starkey into the water agency's 84-inch water line, which runs a few miles to the south of the well field, mentions 2008.
Bruce Kennedy, Pasco's utility director, said responsibility lies with Tampa Bay Water, although Starkey supplies Pasco's Little Road water plant.
"I don't think anyone's ignoring the issue. We just haven't gotten as far along on that issue," Kennedy said.
In Blanco's opinion, the physical job of extending the pipeline requires only a few months and he suspects the delay is due mostly to bureaucratic inertia.
"We're talking 5 years with no relief." Blanco said. ". . . When other well fields are reducing pumping, Starkey will still be wailing away at 15- or 16-million gallons a day."
Polmann isn't sure Blanco understands the scale of the job. Though the existing pipeline, on a map, looks deceptively close to Starkey, extending it requires dodging wetlands and plowing through private property.
"It's going to take a couple years." he said. "We're talking on the order of $30-million worth of work and miles of pipeline."
