Neighbors oppose a plan to pump brackish water and treat it. A summer vote is delayed until December.
By MAUREEN BYRNE AHERN
Published June 8, 2003
SEMINOLE - Five years ago, hundreds of residents protested the county's plans to build a desalination plant in Walsingham Park. They said the facility would harm the environment, create sinkholes and drain their irrigation wells.
Neighbors won that battle.
But the need for alternative water sources remained and a similar plan resurfaced, although on a smaller scale and in a different location.
Officials want to produce about 5-million gallons of water per day from 14 wells in mid-Pinellas that would supply the brackish water. Tampa Bay Water was scheduled to vote this summer on whether the project would go forward and, if so, when.
The agency now has postponed a decision until December, though a manager for the project emphasized that the desalination plant remains a likelihood.
"The evaluation of our future needs suggests we may not need these projects as soon as we thought," said Mike Coates of Tampa Bay Water, which supplies drinking water to St. Petersburg, Tampa and New Port Richey, and to Pinellas, Pasco and Hillsborough counties.
Billie Niemann and others who oppose the project wish it would disappear. They say they understand the need for water, but they don't believe pumping from under their homes is the answer.
"I think about this every day," said Mrs. Niemann. "We're still very much against it."
Less water, more demand
For decades, Pinellas and other coastal communities in Florida have relied on inland communities to supply their drinking water. Then came droughts and the need to develop new water sources.
Many utilities turned to desalination, the removal of salt from water.
To meet the region's needs, Tampa Bay Water created a master plan that includes surface water, a seawater desalination plant, a reservoir, and regional water treatment plants, all in Hillsborough County.
In Apollo Beach, a desal plant capable of generating 25-million gallons a day of tap water began delivering water in March. It is the largest desalination plant in the nation. A second seawater desalination plant is under study for Pasco County.
The Pinellas brackish water project, which would cost $25-million, is the only piece of the plan in this county. The plant would be built near 102nd Avenue N and 66th Street in Pinellas Park.
Water officials have trimmed a list of about 40 potential well sites to 17 preferred sites and 11 alternate sites on public and private properties in an area south of East Bay Drive, north of Park Boulevard, east of Lake Seminole and west of 66th Street.
The locations include churches, public schools, Bardmoor Golf Course, and sections along the CSX railroad track.
The wells would be about 300 feet deep. The brackish water would go through desalination that produces 5-million gallons of water per day. The water would be disinfected and piped into the drinking water system. The 1-million gallons of saltwater concentrate also produced would be injected into a portion of the aquifer about 1,000 feet below the ground.
A Sarasota County plant provides 35 percent of that county's daily demand.
But unlike Pinellas, where the wells and treatment plant would be in a populated area, the Sarasota facility and wells are on a 24,000-acre nature preserve, far from urban life.
"Easier said than done'
Chief among neighbors' worries is the possibility of sinkholes. Tampa Bay Water officials say the mid- and south-Pinellas areas are less prone to sinkholes, which occur when the layer of clay between the top of the aquifer and the ground dissolves.
In north Pinellas, that surface layer of clay is almost nonexistent. It is thicker in central and south Pinellas, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
"Sinkholes naturally occur in Florida, but certain things will accelerate them," said Dann Yobbi, a hydrologist in the U.S. Geological Survey's Tampa office. Things, Yobbi says, like pumping water from the ground.
Tampa Bay Water says if the pumping did cause a problem, the government agency would pay for repairs. Also, if the production adversely impacts private wells that existed before the project, the agency would repair or replace the wells.
"They say it won't cause sinkholes, but in the same breath they say if it does, then we'll pay for them, which is easier said than done," said Mrs. Niemann, who lives in the Bardmoor community and a block from one of the proposed well sites.
Mrs. Niemann is one of about 2,000 residents who last fall signed a petition against the project. Some have attended public meetings and others have written letters of protest to elected officials.
But not much has happened since last year.
Ken Herd, program manager of Tampa Bay Water's master plan, said extensive public involvement may explain why there hasn't been more opposition. "We're just trying to do what's right for the region."
