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Politics
County drops Brooker Creek pumping plan
Early Edition: County Administrator Steve Spratt said the project wasn't worth the acrimony it had generated.
By Theresa Blackwell
Published March 13, 2007
Pinellas County officials Tuesday dropped a controversial plan to pump water from the Brooker Creek Preserve to irrigate two neighboring private golf courses.
Saying the project wasn't worth the acrimony it had generated, County Administrator Steve Spratt said officials will withdraw their application to reactivate the wells.
"This is it," Spratt said. "I intend to withdraw it."
Spratt told commissioners of his decision during their meeting Tuesday morning.
After Spratt finished reading from a three-page memo outlining the decision, commissioners Karen Seel, Bob Stewart and Ken Welch said they supported his decision, and others present offered no opposition. Commissioners Susan Latvala and Ronnie Duncan were not at the meeting.
Opponents of the plan were elated.
"I'm very glad he made the decision," said Matthew Poling, 16, the former senior executive of the Friends of Brooker Creek Preserve. "I don't think that pumping water from a nature preserve to a golf course is a good idea."
The public opposition to the proposal began after Poling and his father Steve discovered a portable pump on one of the wells in the fall of 2005.
As originally proposed, the county wanted to pump an average of 415,000 gallons of water a day - or up to 1,008,000 gallons on any one day - from the Floridan Aquifer beneath the preserve during times of drought. They later reduced the requested amount to 284,256 gallons per day, Spratt told commissioners.
The effect on the preserve, they said, would be negligible.
But in the 10 months since the Times first reported the plan, groups that include the Friends of the Brooker Creek Preserve, the Sierra Club and the St. Petersburg Audubon Society sharply criticized the proposal.
In December, an advisory group called the Environmental Science Forum voted 9 to 4 to recommend against reopening three old wells in the preserve to provide water for East Lake Woodlands golf courses during times of drought.
Pinellas County Utilities officials had said pumping from the wells would leave more reclaimed water for homeowners.
But most members of the science forum, a group Spratt created to give advice on environmental policy questions, said the proposal sends the wrong message as conserving water becomes more and more critical.
At times the controversy over the pumping plan had led environmental advocates to make stinging charges against Spratt, and Welch took a moment to praise the administrator.
"I just want to commend you on your conduct during these debates," Welch said.
Times staff writer Will Van Sant contributed to this report. Theresa Blackwell can be reached at tblackwell@sptimes.com or (727) 445-4170.
[Last modified March 13, 2007, 15:00:40]
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by Jason
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03/13/07 04:50 PM
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Well, well, well.....I'm sure this had absolutely NOTHING to do with the Pork for Pinellas vote going on TODAY!
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by Heidi
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03/13/07 03:38 PM
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WHY do sprawling golf landscapes have to be perfectly green anyway? I understand, a little, the rationale for smaller putting areas, but not the rest. Lawns that require constant watering should be banned also. There'll be no water before no oil.
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