At a public hearing on the Council of 100's report, a lone supporter from Pinellas is heard.
By CRAIG PITTMAN
Published October 9, 2003
LAKELAND - Farmers, politicians and utility executives turned out Wednesday to argue against several proposed changes in the way Florida's water supply is divvied up.
In the first of five public hearings, about 100 people crowded into Lakeland City Hall to tell five state senators what they thought about a report recently unveiled by the Council of 100, a group of business leaders who advise Gov. Jeb Bush.
The senators conducting the hearing, chaired by Sen. Al Lawson, D-Tallahassee, seemed sympathetic to the crowd's complaints. Lawson called the Council of 100 "out of touch."
Sen. Nancy Argenziano, R-Dunnellon, said the Council of 100 report reads like a bid by developers to feed growth at all costs.
The hearing, conducted by the Senate Natural Resources Committee, began with a speech by the assistant director of the Pinellas County Utilities Department, who agreed with the Council of 100 that big changes are necessary.
During the three-hour hearing, he was the only one to take that position. No one from the Council of 100 or its water task force, spearheaded by Clearwater developer Lee Arnold, showed up to speak.
The Council of 100 has called for establishing a statewide water commission that could route water from rural areas to booming regions that lack water to keep up with growth.
The council also called for using state park and preserve land to supply water to growing urban and suburban areas, and creating incentives for private enterprise to help develop water resources.
"The status quo is probably a death sentence for Florida," warned Chris Staubus, the Pinellas utility official, who said he was representing a utility industry group.
Several speakers, including officials from Gainesville and Lakeland, said they prefer the status quo to a plan that would suck water out of one part of the state to slake the thirst in other areas.
"We don't need anybody sticking a pipe in the ground and taking it elsewhere," said Polk County Commissioner Don Gifford.
In public comments on the report, Council of 100 chairman Al Hoffman - the developer of such communities as Sun City Center - has said the state does not have a water supply problem, but a water distribution problem.
But U.S. Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite, in a letter read aloud by an aide, said that was wrong.
"We do not have a water distribution problem in Florida," she wrote. "We have a developer-distribution problem."
Brown-Waite and several speakers called for better management of the state's growth.
A public hearing will be held tonight in Jacksonville, followed by Fort Lauderdale, Panama City and Lake City.
