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Is Tampa proposal a risky one for river?

Trying to balance water needs and the Hillsborough River's health, the city is considering pumping in treated wastewater.

By JANET ZINK
Published December 9, 2005

TAMPA - Pam Iorio hopes that the Riverwalk - a 2.5 mile walkway along the Hillsborough River with cafes, artwork and scenic overlooks - will be her legacy as Tampa's mayor.

But even as they plan the Riverwalk's future, city officials are pushing initiatives that some say could threaten the health of the river they hope to make the city's centerpiece.

Tampa depends upon the river for drinking water, and is caught between the demands of water customers and the need to keep enough freshwater flowing to support wildlife. "Our first priority is Tampa's supply of drinking water. That has to be protected," Iorio said.

With that in mind, she backs a plan to add treated wastewater into the river below the city's reservoir, and changing environmental standards so that can happen. She's fighting pressure to send clean river water from the reservoir downstream to meet proposed higher minimum flow levels.

John Ovink, who founded the nonprofit Friends of the River, said he loves Iorio's Riverwalk idea.

"We have a mayor committed to (the river) as a vibrant heart of Tampa. Now she needs to make the second commitment and keep it clean," Ovink said. "You need to look deeper than the outside dressing. If the river does not support life, why would you want to go there?"

The debate over the amount of water flowing down the lower Hillsborough River began more than five years ago when Tampa and the Southwest Florida Water Management District, commonly called Swiftmud, set the river's minimum flow at 10 cubic feet per second.

The challenge is to keep enough clean, fresh water flowing downstream to maintain a proper balance in the lower river and keep it from becoming too salty and polluted. Friends of the River questioned the level, saying it wasn't high enough to support snook, baby manatees and other wildlife. Friends of the River sued and negotiated a settlement requiring a five-year study.

In September, Swiftmud released a draft report that said the level should be raised to 26 cubic feet per second. That made Ovink and environmental regulators happy. But not the city, which said the report had no real justification for the higher number. City officials say state law doesn't require that the lower river have a minimum flow.

"In an altered river like we have ... where you have all these sea walls, it's like a canal. It's not a river," said Steve Daignault, the city's administrator for Public Works and Utilities.

Tampa has a dam on the river, where it collects freshwater for more than 650,000 people. And the number keeps growing. "Every time you build a house, or a condominium downtown, every one one of those folks is demanding water," Daignault said.

How, then, does the city keep a healthy level of water flowing in the lower river?

Ecologically, "the ideal would be to have the minimum flow made up with river water," said Gerold Morrison, director of the environmental resources management division of the Hillsborough County Environmental Protection Commission. "But that may not be economically feasible."

It's not, say city officials. If they stop taking drinking water from the river, they will have to buy it from Tampa Bay Water, which would cost more. Tampa Bay Water also sometimes takes water from the river for Pinellas and Pasco counties, and says it can't accommodate Tampa's demand from other sources, including the regional reservoir and desalination plant.

Tampa Bay Water suggests maintaining the lower Hillsborough River's water levels by adding treated wastewater from Tampa's Howard F. Curren Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant.

The Curren plant produces 60-million gallons a day of treated water. A little is used for lawn irrigation. But most of it is dumped into Tampa Bay.

"That is a waste of a resource," Iorio said.

Tampa Bay Water is seeking a permit from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to put the water into the Hillsborough River and the Tampa Bypass Canal.

The water would flow in below the dam, so it would not be part of the city's drinking supply. And because Tampa Bay Water only taps into the Hillsborough River when it's swollen with rain, the wastewater would only be added part of the year. At the most, the river would be comprised of about 30 percent treated wastewater, the utility says.

The city of Tampa supports the $186-million project, which would be paid for by Tampa Bay Water and Swiftmud.

Iorio said it will help meet the entire region's water supply needs. "We've done it to be good partners," she said.

But treated wastewater contains pharmaceutical waste from birth control pills and hormone replacement medications, which could change the sex of fish, said Mike Meyer, a researcher at U.S. Geological Survey at the Kansas Water Science Center.

Studies of the impact of pharmaceuticals on the sex of fish are under way in other rivers.

Treated wastewater is also saltier than freshwater, and can kill plants. It contains more nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, which could cause algae blooms, said the EPC's Morrison. And it could cut dissolved oxygen content, which bass, snook, red fish and sea trout need to survive.

So Tampa Bay Water is asking the DEP to lower its requirements for dissolved oxygen.

That worries environmentalists.

"It's like saying, "Oh, we have a bad polluting factory in our city and we should do something about it so let's lower the standards of clean air so that the factory no longer pollutes,' " Ovink said.

The state-mandated dissolved oxygen content for the river is now 4 to 5 milligrams per liter.

"That's a very good oxygen level for fish and invertebrates," Holly Greening, senior scientist with the Tampa Bay Estuary Program.

Tampa Bay Water wants to adjust the requirement to 2.4 to 4.5 milligrams per liter. It wants permission to put the treated wastewater in the river by late 2006, and Swiftmud is likely to decide next year on the river's minimum flow.

Meanwhile, studies are ongoing and environmental and regulatory groups are reviewing them.

"There are issues for any activity that proposes a discharge into waters of the state," said Jerry Brooks, deputy director of water resource management for the DEP. "It cannot have an adverse effect on the native fish and wildlife of that water body."

Iorio said she has faith that the permitting agencies will do their work and stop any project or standard that doesn't make sense.

"Things have got to be based on scientific fact," she said. "That's got to be very important as we go through this."

The Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council will host a workshop on a proposal to put treated wastewater into the Hillsborough River and Tampa Bypass Canal at 9 a.m. today at 4000 Gateway Centre Blvd. in Pinellas Park.

[Last modified December 9, 2005, 01:20:12]