Tampa urged to not cut back river's flow
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 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 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 meet 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.
Projected population growth means that within a year the city will have to start regularly buying 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, the city and environmental groups have been debating for years how much freshwater should flow down the Hillsborough.
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.
Swiftmud's final recommendation is due at the end of July.