The owners of Crystal Springs, which feeds the Hillsborough River, have struck a deal with the Southwest Florida Water Management District, allowing the bottling of as much as 756,000 gallons of water a day in return for cutting back on irrigation at their nearby Two Rivers Ranch. Testing and monitoring will continue for the six years of the deal, and during droughts a certain minimum of water must be kept flowing into the river.
A deal is certainly more in the public interest than the acrimonious and hugely costly litigation that has been the Tampa Bay region's way of dealing with water disputes. Crystal Springs is only one of many unused or underused agricultural pumping permits, and the underlying truth remains: Water controls development, and development means huge wealth to landowners. It is no exaggeration to say that control of water means control of the future shape of Tampa Bay's communities.
The relatively short life of the Crystal Springs permits - the original application was for 20 years - is welcome. Over that time, it is imperative for the water district, known as Swiftmud, to ensure there is no environmental harm from this water swap. Included in the permit's safeguards is a district and ranch study of aquatic habitat, water chemistry and other environmental measures dependent on the Hillsborough River's flow from the springs.
The precautions are needed because all of the water at the springs is being bottled and sold, while roughly a third of the water irrigating the ranch returns to the ground and replenishes the aquifer. According to the agreement approved last month, average daily pumping at the spring will increase 150 percent over the next five years until it reaches nearly 756,000 gallons. At the same time, permitted average daily pumping at the nearby ranch will be cut by two-thirds to 400,000 gallons. Though a net reduction on paper, it is actually an increase of 200,000 gallons, because the ranch does not routinely use its allowable levels.
Pasco County added language to the Crystal Springs deal to ensure the water district does not construe this as a precedent allowing wholesale buying and selling of unused water pumping rights. Those fears surfaced after Tampa Bay Water, the wholesale water utility for 2-million Tampa Bay residents, acknowledged it had identified 65-million gallons of groundwater going unused each day by agricultural and business interests in Pasco and Hillsborough counties that could be used to serve the region's future needs.
Water belongs to the state, to all its citizens, not to individual landowners. It is the responsibility of the water management district to apply modern scientific methods and determine how much groundwater can be pumped without drying up our lakes and rivers, and then issue permits to meet the needs of our communities.
Meanwhile, the state needs to begin to think about moving beyond a piecemeal approach to its water problems. The Council of 100, a group of business leaders, has called for a statewide water board with authority to transfer water from rural north Florida to more densely populated areas in South Florida. The idea has ignited what promises to be a divisive and emotional debate. Given the enormous role water decisions will play in shaping the state's future growth, this issue is too important to be decided on the basis of regional prejudice and parochial interests. A statewide water authority may or may not make sense, but it's a question worth exploring in an open and honest debate.
