Desal meeting crowd dwindles

Once up to 1,000 showed up to have their say on a Tampa Bay desalination project. About 250 attend the final hearing.

By BILL VARIAN

© St. Petersburg Times, published March 29, 2001

TAMPA -- Maybe it was water fatigue.

Or perhaps people preferred to stay home and watch a fictional government tackle more distant issues on television's West Wing.

A smaller-than-expected crowd turned out Wednesday night for a last chance to publicly question a proposal to build a seawater desalination plant on Tampa Bay.

This time, the audience included plenty of people who spoke in favor of the proposal -- some of them from neighboring counties.

"We are going to have to do an experiment here," said Marsha Weaver, a Pinellas County civic activist who acknowledged her own past fight against a similar proposal there. "Welcome to the new millennium. We have to learn to change and adapt."

It was the final public hearing on the last permit that must be issued before the desalination plant can built. The Florida Department of Environment Protection will take written comments through 5 p.m. Monday before it closes the public review period and decides whether to approve, reject or modify its already written draft discharge permit.

Wednesday's attendance at the Florida State Fairgrounds fell in contrast to the crowd that showed up for a public hearing more than a year ago, not long after the desalination plant was proposed by Tampa Bay Water. Then, at least 700 people and as many as 1,000 showed up, most of them to emphatically state their opposition.

Walter Howard, president and chief executive officer for Connecticut-based Poseidon Resources, which would build the plant, recalled a sea of yellow shirts at the hearing last February. The shirts, produced by the local environmental group Save Our Bays, Air and Canals (SOBAC), featured a manatee being sprinkled with salt.

"What's your count this time?" Howard asked a reporter early Wednesday. "Maybe 50?"

In all, about 250 attended Wednesday's hearing, including representatives of state and local government, and the media.

Tampa Bay Water is proposing to build the plant, which would convert 44-million gallons a day of seawater into about 25-millions gallons of drinking water. The $110-million plant would be built next to TECO's Big Bend power plant near Apollo Beach in southern Hillsborough County. The plant, set to open by December 2002, would use seawater already being pumped to TECO to cool its generators.

Opponents of the desalination proposal as planned fear the doubly salty byproduct left over from the desalination process will harm sea life when dumped into the surrounding estuary. They say poor circulation in the bay will only increase that saltiness over time, affecting animals and plants.

Separate studies of the proposal have showed the saltiness in the estuary won't change any more than it does during normal tides.

The most noteworthy speaker Wednesday may have been first. DEP organizers allowed a representative of SOBAC, which has been the primary group challenging the plan, to state its case as part of the official presentation that preceded the public comment period.

SOBAC chose its attorney to give the address.

The attorney, Ralf Brookes of Cape Coral, said the saltiness of the discharge into Tampa Bay is not the only issue. He said several chemicals also will be discharged into the bay as part of the desalination process, and there are no adequate safeguards in place to make sure they won't harm sea life. DEP officials later denied the charge.

- Times Staff Writer Craig Pittman contributed to this report.

Previous coverage:

Seawater desalination plant is closer to reality

PinellasPark could be water source

Desalination plant permit is delayed

Water projects called harmless to bay

2 Pinellas sites are options for desal plant

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