Northpinellas: Water use falls, but is it enough?

Pinellas cut its water use by 4.6 percent instead of 5 percent, as officials at the Southwest Florida Water Management District had ordered. But the reduction may be just enough to make the water-governing board happy.

"I am so pleased and excited about the 4.6 percent," said Ronnie Duncan, chairman of the water board known as Swiftmud. "From my perspective, they've accomplished what we asked them to accomplish."

That's encouraging because Swiftmud could fine governments that didn't meet the 5 percent cut up to $10,000 for each day they failed to meet the emergency order.

"Fines do not create new water, and litigation doesn't help bring water use down," Duncan said.

The full board will decide what, if anything, it will do later this month.

Severe drought conditions throughout the region prompted Swiftmud to tell its member governments to cut their water use by 5 percent compared with the same period last year.

In comparing May and June with the same months last year, preliminary numbers show that the member governments of Tampa Bay Water dropped their water use by a total of just more than 5 percent, said David Bracciano, Tampa Bay Water's conservation manager. Those numbers could change slightly, but it appears that St. Petersburg, Pasco County and New Port Richey made the cut easily, and that Tampa hovered just at 5 percent.

Only Hillsborough County didn't come close -- and the county could suffer some consequences. Hillsborough cut its water use by 1.7 percent in May and increased it by 1.3 percent in June, compared with May and June of last year.

Swiftmud staffers are working with Hillsborough to figure out why the county's water use didn't drop enough, Duncan said. He said the board might consider suspending money to pay for cooperative projects with the county, such as educating schoolchildren about water conservation and restoring wetlands on the Hillsborough River.

In Pinellas, county utilities director Pick Talley said the county could have made the 5 percent cut if it had rained more in June. He said that whether or not Swiftmud judges the county to have met the target, cutting water use by so much was an achievement. Pinellas County residents already use less water per person than the national average, he said.

"We've asked people for 10 years to reduce their water, and they've already responded," Talley said. "Had we not been so aggressive in the past, it might have been easier."

Pinellas' water figures include its wholesale water customers: Clearwater, Tarpon Springs, Pinellas Park, Safety Harbor and Oldsmar. The county provides water directly to unincorporated Pinellas County, Largo, Kenneth City, Seminole and Pinellas beach communities.

Cathy MacLaren, who has worked on the county's conservation campaign, said some residents have taken the effort a little too far.

"We hear people saying, "I only shower once a week now,"' she said. "We say, "Please don't sacrifice personal health and well-being."'

St. Petersburg utilities director Bill Johnson also praised Pinellas.

"I still think it's pretty admirable," he said of Pinellas county's near achievement.

St. Petersburg met the goal easily, cutting its water use by 11.5 percent in May and 8.8 percent in June. But the city had luck on its side.

Tampa Bay Water installed a new meter in the city's Cosme treatment plant in Hillsborough County that seems to give lower readings than the old one, Johnson said. He is unsure how much of St. Petersburg's reduction was attributable to the change.

"It's a combination of conservation and more accurate metering at the water plant," Johnson said, guessing that the meter change could account for as much as half the reduction. "I wouldn't want you to think it's all due to conservation."

- Staff writers Bill Varian and Bryan Gilmer contributed to this report.

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