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Flushing pipes, wasting water called necessary

Officials say the procedure keeps water safe.

By NICOLE HUTCHESON, Times Staff Writer
Published January 21, 2008

Water lines are flushed in a neighborhood on St. Petersburg's south side last month. The city says it flushes about 30-million gallons a month to keep the water safe. Video: Water, water, everywhere
	[Lara Cerri | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT [Lara Cerri | Times] Both Hillsborough County and the city of Tampa deal with the same problem the same way, flushing water out of hydrants. Hillsborough County flushes about 16-million gallons a month.

ST. PETERSBURG - The Tampa Bay area is under strict water restrictions.

Residents can water outside only once a week, on specific days designed to regulate daily use. But don't think that local governments are bound by the same rules.

Take a walk in the southern end of St. Petersburg during the week and you could find streets that look more like swimming holes.

There, two or three times a week, fire hydrants are uncorked and water gushes forth, full steam ahead into the middle of the streets, where it eventually flushes into the bay.

The city disposes of 30-million gallons of drinkable water this way every month. That's enough to fill 1,200 swimming pools.

And St. Petersburg is not alone. Several cities and counties throughout the state, including Pinellas, Hillsborough and Tampa, flush millions of gallons of water on a weekly basis.

St. Petersburg officials say the water flushing practice is a necessary evil. Without it, residents run the risk of poor water quality.

City residents use about 24-million gallons of water a day, but the pipes were built for almost three times that amount. To prevent water borne illnesses, the city treats the water with a chemical called Chloramine, a mixture of chlorine and ammonia.

However, if the chemically treated water is left in the pipe too long, it could become unsafe. Water is not a sterile liquid. It has micro-organisms and if it sits too long, bacteria grows. Eventually the disinfectant stops working and the bacteria flourishes, especially in warmer water like ours.

Because of the relatively low water use in St. Petersburg, that tends to happen often, city officials say.

"We have a challenge in Florida because of the warmer climate," said Patricia J. Anderson, director of the city of St. Petersburg's Department of Water Resources. "If water sits in the pipe, it starts to warm up and the quality of the water changes."

It's a practice that hasn't gone unnoticed. City officials regularly hear complaints from residents.

"They're looking at it and saying it's wasteful," said City Councilman Jeff Danner. "It's the price of safe drinking water."

While the flushing practice may be necessary, some say it's not the most sensible, considering the water crisis facing the state and its northern neighbor Georgia.

Conditions have become so dire in the Peach State that some counties are considering outlawing the filling of swimming pools this summer.

"Anytime that we're essentially wasting 30-million gallons of water a month, I'd like to think there's a more efficient use for the water," said Jeff Cunningham, an assistant professor at the University of South Florida's Environmental and Water Resources Engineering Division.

Both Hillsborough County and the city of Tampa deal with the same problem the same way, flushing water out of hydrants. Both are taking steps that they hope will produce less flushing in the future.

Hillsborough County flushes about 16-million gallons a month, or 1 percent of all the water it uses. The county is implementing a new computer-sequenced system of preventive flushing. It will insure that each section of water pipe receives a brief flush regularly enough that larger flushes won't be necessary to solve bacteria problems, said Arnold Becken, a section manager with the county's water department.

"The whole idea is to waste the least amount of water," Becken said.

Tampa has reduced the need for flushing since upgrading its water plant and water treatment standards six years ago, said water director Brad Baird.

The system produces about 80-million gallons daily and must flush only about 2-million gallons a month, said Myung Kim, the water quality assurance officer. He said most of Tampa's water is consumed within two days of being treated.

Baird said Tampa is required by the state to flush its pipes at least every six months, but plans to ask this year for reduced flushing.

"It might behoove us to do that before the dry season hits in April, May and June," Baird said.

While the Southwest Florida Water Management District, commonly known as Swiftmud, monitors resident use, it doesn't enforce its water rules on municipalities.

"We are aware that because of their infrastructure they do have to do flushing," said Robyn Hanke, a spokesperson for Swiftmud. "It's necessary to meet drinking water standards and we consider it a public health and safety issue."

St. Petersburg is exploring options for how to recycle the water it flushes, including funneling the water to a city treatment facility to be used as reclaimed water or capturing it to water city green spaces.

The long-term answer lies in infrastructure improvements, said Daniel Yeh, assistant professor in the University of South Florida's civil environmental engineering department.

"We've got to spend money on infrastructure," Yeh said. "But we live in a political environment. We can say, 'Okay, let's make the pipe's smaller. We'll have to dig up all the streets to do it.' "

When asked if he thought taxpayers would opt to pay for new pipes to save more water, Yeh said: "Probably not."

Bill Coats contributed to this report. Information from the Miami Herald was used in this report. Nicole Hutcheson can be reached at nhutcheson@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8828.

Daily water use

Amount of water used per day in these municipalities (between Oct. 1, 2006 and Sept. 30, 2007), in millions of gallons

St. Petersburg 30.4 Pinellas County 64.7 Tampa 82.4 Hillsborough County 52.6 New Port Richey 2.9 Pasco County 26.5

[Last modified January 20, 2008, 20:59:58]