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Advocates fight for fresh river water

Some want safe homes for wildlife; others want drinking water for a steadily growing population.

By JANET ZINK
Published June 16, 2006

TAMPA - Environmental advocates encouraged the City Council on Thursday to make sure the Hillsborough River gets enough freshwater to sustain the bass, snook, baby manatees and other wildlife that call it home.

Phil Compton, a member of the nonprofit group Friends of the River, showed council members petitions with 1,000 signatures in support of restoring the river.

"When we've talked to people in the city, they understand, and they care about this," he said.

Dick Eckenrod, director of the Tampa Bay Estuary Program, said the health of the Hillsborough River also affects Tampa Bay.

"The river is alive," he said. "Its vitality depends on a continuous source of freshwater."

Compton, Eckenrod and other river defenders made their remarks after local and regional water officials talked about the need to provide drinking water to the area's growing population.

The river is Tampa's primary source of drinking water. Tampa Bay Water, which provides water to customers in Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco counties, also taps into it.

The region will need an additional 12-million gallons of water a day by 2012 and 45-million gallons per day by 2025 to keep up with demand, said Paula Dye, chief environmental planner for Tampa Bay Water.

Tampa Bay Water is pursuing permission to take more water from the reservoir above the Hillsborough River dam near Busch Gardens and replace it with treated sewer water below the dam.

Tampa has reached the limit of its state permit to pull 82-million gallons a day from the reservoir.

Projected population growth means that within a year the city will have to start regularly buying drinking water from Tampa Bay Water, which eventually will drive up rates for city water customers, said Steve Daignault, the city's administrator for public works and utilities.

Meanwhile, there's little water left to flow over the dam and down the Hillsborough River to Tampa Bay.

The Southwest Florida Water Management District, city and environmental groups have been debating for years how much freshwater should flow down the Hillsborough River.

In 2000, Swiftmud and the city set the minimum flow at 10 cubic feet per second.

Friends of the River said that wasn't enough to flush saltwater and other pollutants from the river. The group sued and negotiated a settlement requiring a five-year study.

In September, Swiftmud released a draft of a consultant's study that recommended raising the level to 26 cubic feet per second. That made Friends of the River happy, but not the city, which said the report didn't justify the higher number.

A final recommendation from Swiftmud is due at the end of July. But Daignault said Thursday that state law doesn't require any minimum flow for the lower river because it's impaired by the dam, which was built in the 1890s, and seawalls.

Council member Linda Saul-Sena criticized Daignault for not giving enough consideration to the environmental aspects of the river.

"You're looking at it so closely as a source of drinking water you're not thinking about the other side," she said.

Council member John Dingfelder said the city needs to do a better job with conservation and using treated wastewater to reduce drinking water demand, but "our primary responsibility is to provide potable water to our residents," he said. "We can't lose sight of that."

Janet Zink can be reached at jzink@sptimes.com or 813 226-3401.

[Last modified June 16, 2006, 06:02:43]