Water wars rage on in some Pasco hearts

Speakers at a hearing on water issues show no signs of giving up the idea that Pinellas and Hillsborough are drying up Pasco.

By JAMES THORNER

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 19, 2000

LAND O'LAKES -- Restore Pasco County's creeks and lakes, sucked dry by groundwater pumping.

Force Pinellas County to pay its fair share for the drinking water it takes from Pasco.

Ban the use of potable water for lawn sprinkling by the year 2010.

On Tuesday afternoon, a small but passionate group of residents pitched their opinions about water to officials from the Southwest Florida Water Management District and the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council.

Swiftmud officials were trying to identify key water issues for inclusion in a Pasco water plan that the water district by law must update every five years.

When Pasco's last plan was compiled in 1995, the county was immersed in what was known as the water wars: The fight by residents to reduce Pasco groundwater pumping, pumping that benefited mainly Hillsborough and Pinellas counties.

But one of the attendees at Tuesday's session at the Land O'Lakes Senior Center, state Rep. Ken Littlefield, R-Dade City, said a regional consensus about water remains elusive.

"Is there anybody in this room who thinks the water wars have ended?" Littlefield asked.

As if on cue, others at the meeting piped up with stories to prove regional water grievances are alive and well.

Stefanie Schatzman, who lives beside the Cross Bar well field north of State Road 52, complained how pumping, much of it to supply Pinellas, has ravaged her property.

She mentioned sinkholes and dying trees and vanishing creeks and swamps that her family no longer can access with their canoes. She complained about the expensive filters and additives she needs to purify her smelly drinking water.

"They need to start paying their fair share," Schatzman said of Pinellas. "They pay nothing to Pasco."

Pete Dix of San Antonio proposed conserving water by requiring homes to use reclaimed water in their lawn-sprinkling systems. Reclaimed water is the treated product of sewage plants.

But Dix was contradicted later by Andy Smith, a water official from Hillsborough, who offered up a conservation measure sure to raise the ire of green-lawn lovers.

Smith urged Swiftmud to support banning the use of potable water for lawn sprinkling after 2010 and the use of reclaimed water for sprinkling after 2020.

Gaye Townsend, a community activist from Lutz, asked the water district to encourage Pinellas County to convert brackish water into drinking water, a move resisted in the past by Pinellas officials.

Tampa Bay Water, the regional water agency serving Pasco, Pinellas and Hillsborough, has vowed to cut by 40 percent the amount of groundwater it pulls from Pasco's six well fields and northern Hillsborough's five well fields.

By 2010, new sources of water, including a Tampa Bay desalination plant and a new river water treatment plant, are supposed to generate another 111-million gallons a day.

Swiftmud will include Tuesday's public comments in a draft of the Pasco water plan, the final version of which is scheduled for adoption in July 2001. The public will be able to access the information through the Web site: http://Tbrpc.org/water.

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