Hey, here's a nifty idea guaranteed to win the hearts of the average Florida citizen.
Let's create a group of politically connected and rich real estate developers and CEOs of power companies, citrus conglomerates and big city newspapers and let them decide the future of Florida's most populist commodity: water.
Is this a skit for Saturday Night Live or the next Carl Hiaasen plot lampooning good ol' dysfunctional Florida?
Neither. The group is real. And it has already issued a report on Florida's water future that - surprise, surprise - urges the state to redefine water as a statewide rather than a local resource. That way it can be more easily funneled from H2O-rich areas to H20-poor (and rapidly developing) areas of the state. There's even talk of paying the rural counties to the north to give up some of their water riches.
Given Florida's rain-soaked countryside these days, talk of a new water policy seems almost silly. But we may now be witnessing the early skirmishes that in coming years will turn into a major battle among different regions in Florida. And that battle may be part of a bigger water war between Florida and the increasingly thirsty Southeastern states eager to tap more of the rivers that flow south into North Florida and, ultimately, the Gulf of Mexico.
The Florida Council of 100, the most exclusive business group in the state, issued a 34-page report last month with a not-so-catchy title, Improving Florida's Water Supply Management Structure.
The report has caused an immediate and predictable stink. Environmentalists argue it's a baldfaced attempt to pillage Florida's delicate water balance to maximize economic growth. North Florida, rich in rivers and springs, claims the report is setting the political scene for the heavily populated part of the state south of Interstate 4 to steal their water.
They are right, and they are wrong. Right, because if you bother to read the Council of 100 report available online at http://www.fc100.org/) you could conclude that water in Florida is here largely to serve the next major housing subdivision, the next shopping strip mall and the next commercial car wash.
The 30-member task force of the Council of 100 that assembled this water report is chaired by Clearwater's most prominent real estate developer, Lee Arnold of Arnold Companies. The task force also includes Tampa Bay developers and corporate chieftains such as Al Austin of the Austin Co., Fred Bullard of the Bullard Group, Don DeFosset of Walter Industries and Bob Fagan of TECO Energy, as well as citrus giant Ben Hill Griffin and South Florida "Big Sugar" heavyweight Alfy Fanjul of Florida Crystals Corp. The publishers of newspapers in Jacksonville and Lakeland are on the water task force, as is this newspaper's CEO, Andy Barnes.
A powerful group? You betcha. Representative of the state? Hardly. Extremely influential with state politicians? More than we can imagine.
The chairman of the Council of 100 is Al Hoffman, CEO of upscale planned community developer WCI Communities. He also happens to have been the chief fundraiser for Gov. Jeb Bush's last two election campaigns, the national finance chairman for the Republican National Committee, and now one of the elite "Rangers" who has raised more than $200,000 for the re-election campaign of President George Bush.
It's hard to tell which organization bears a closer resemblance to the Council of 100: Yale University's secret society Skull and Bones' or the group of energy industry executives that met behind closed doors with Vice President Dick Cheney, himself a former corporate energy CEO, to draft a national energy policy.
The Council of 100's report on the future of water makes minimal mention of terms such as "conservation" and "growth limits."
In fact, Hoffman told the Tampa Tribune last month that it was a "matter of principle" among developers on the Council to ignore such ideas. Protecting the state's environment shouldn't come at the expense of growth and prosperity, he said.
Yet here's where the water report's critics may be wrong. The Council report brings a needed focus on a key issue that's received only piecemeal debate. It argues for a centralized and more careful accounting of the state's water resources. It proposes a council of scientists, akin to the White House Council of Economic Advisers, to provide expertise on the state water supply.
These are good ideas. Especially given the state's growing anguish in times of drought, and the rising interest in building supplemental water sources such as desalinization plants (if we can just get 'em to work.)
But the volume of conflicts between water haves and water have-nots is rising:
In North Florida, regional water managers and legislators are worried that growing metro areas in the state may eventually try to tap their untapped aquifers and the Suwannee River. State Rep. Charles Dean, R-Inverness, recently suggested taking water from the Suwannee and Apalachicola rivers and sending it to South Florida on barges.
Ocala and surrounding Marion County are becoming more aggressive lobbyists to protect their local water reserves.
Anticipating tough debates ahead on water issues in Tallahassee, the state Senate's Committee on Natural Resources will hold five regional meetings on the topic starting Oct. 8 in Lakeland, followed on Oct. 9 in Jacksonville, Oct. 14 in Fort Lauderdale, Oct. 20 in Panama City and Nov. 17 in Lake City.
After several years of negotiations, settlement talks among Florida, Georgia and Alabama fell apart this summer over apportioning water rights from the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin. Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue blamed Florida for the failure. One obstacle: who controls the Chattahoochee River. Georgia wants to be able to use as much water as it needs, especially for metro Atlanta's ongoing expansion. The issue will now be decided by the courts.
I could go right on up the East Coast:
South Carolina is scrapping with North Carolina over the Pee Dee River and Georgia over the Savannah River. Maryland and Virginia are locked in battle over which state gets to tap the Potomac River.
And we thought the real water wars would remain out West, where dusty states and rising populations fight right down to who gets the last drop left in the Colorado River.
That intensity has not arrived here quite yet. But Florida's long-term water situation obviously has caught the attention of the pro-business elite of the Florida Council of 100. And they are busy making sure they are first in line, cup in hand, when the rationing begins.
