NEW PORT RICHEY -- Even though regulators have given the all-clear sign to some bay area communities now flush with water supplies, local officials don't seem willing to open the nozzle all the way.

Pasco County is still eager to raise water rates for customers deemed to be using more than their fair share.

And Brooksville, which according to the Southwest Florida Water Management District now has the right to return to twice-a-week watering, decided to pass on easing the restrictions.

The Swiftmud governing board voted last month to allow twice-a-week watering throughout the district -- except Tampa Bay Water customers, including Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater, because of evidence that pumping is damaging wetlands. This lifted an order allowing only once-a-week watering that had been in effect since May 2000.

In Pasco, county commissioners are still eager to use "conservation rates," rates that climb steeply along with consumption, encouraging customers to turn off their taps.

"We'll still do it," County Administrator John Gallagher said. "With or without the order, the idea is to conserve water."

Desalination plant gets its final permit

CLEARWATER -- Also on the water front, Tampa Bay's first seawater desalination plant cleared its final obstacle when the state Department of Environmental Protection issued the final permit, making its completion 13 months from now a virtual certainty.

Tampa Bay Desal, the company building the plant in the Big Bend area of southern Hillsborough County that is scheduled to produce 25-million gallons a day, expressed relief.

Last month, an administrative law judge dismissed the effort of a citizens group from the Apollo Beach area to stop the project. The group, Save Our Bays and Canals, filed exceptions to the ruling, but has not signaled any intent to appeal it formally.

This gives Tampa Bay Desal the green light to discharge the brine end product of the desalination process into Tampa Bay. The discharge and sensitive environmental areas around the discharge point will be monitored closely for adverse impacts, which DEP does not expect to occur.

Legendary 'bottomless hole' turns out to be just a hole

PORT RICHEY -- Local lore had it that the sinkhole filled with freshwater in the Werner-Boyce Salt Springs State Park was a bottomless cavern, where lead weights tied to ropes sent below had never found the bottom.

So it was with a bit of disappointment last week when divers found the bottom just 40 feet down. And they had to go through a cloud of noxious hydrogen sulfide to get to it.

"It's like diving into rotten eggs," said Paul Heinerth, an internationally recognized diver and co-owner of Scuba West Inc. in Hudson. Heinerth and Ken Caraccia, an environmental consultant from New Port Richey, had to come out of the water because their skin and eyes were burning from the cloud.

But the day wasn't a total letdown.

Dr. Burt Golub, volunteer leader of the local BSA Explorer Post 60, said the seven students out on Saturday morning found pottery shards and pieces of ancient tools. He made an educated guess that they dated to about 1000 B.C.

"We know there is something out there now," Golub said last Sunday. He said the post, which is one of two nationally that focuses on archaeology, hopes to go out again and look for more.

Lack of phone, Internet connections decried

LAND O'LAKES -- Internet junkies and tech-savvy businesses are waiting on hold for Pasco County's outdated services to catch up with the times.

The county has three different area codes with no local, toll-free calling across the county. And there is no high-speed Internet access yet from the cable companies.

Mary Jane Stanley, executive director of Pasco's Economic Development Council, said those issues are an obstacle to recruiting companies to the area. Although wooing a high-tech company to Pasco would be a coup, it's difficult to do that when the phone and Internet services here are behind the times.

Help might be on the way for Web surfers at least. Time Warner and Shaw Communications say high-speed Internet access is about a year away.

But Bob Elek, a spokesman for Verizon, which has 150,000 customers in Pasco, said he's not sure whether the company would change the local calling area, to reduce the amount of cross-county, long-distance calling, but it would probably take more than shifting patterns of commerce or "communities of interest" to justify doing that.

Suncoast Parkway to get a little bit speedier

Those who obey the speed limit -- and rumor is there are a few left in the world -- will soon get to motor down the Suncoast Parkway at a faster clip.

Starting Friday, the toll road's speed limit climbs from 65 to 70 mph from the Pasco-Hillsborough County line to nearly the Hernando-Citrus County line.

Though the parkway was designed, like interstates, to handle speeds of up to 70 mph, drivers have been forced to ease off the gas since the $500-million toll road opened in February.

"We always wait until the road is open to do a study to determine if we can raise the speed limit. We always start off conservatively," parkway spokeswoman Joanne Hurley said.

Built as an alternative to U.S. 19 and Interstate 75, the 42-mile parkway links the outer regions of Pasco, Hernando and Citrus with Tampa International Airport and the West Shore business district of Hillsborough.

In short . . .

DADE CITY -- Given the events of Sept. 11, the Pasco-Hernando Community College board of trustees agreed Monday on new rules requiring that federal authorities be informed when student visas expire.

CLEARWATER -- Pinellas voters next year will use electronic touch screen machines from Sequoia Voting Systems, county commissioners decided. Though a top choice of a citizens committee, the company's $15.5-million proposal was jeopardized when it became known that Phil Foster, a key Sequoia executive, faces criminal charges in Louisiana.

TAMPA -- Jeff Swanagan, credited with transforming the Florida Aquarium from a lackluster money pit into one of the city's proudest attractions, has accepted a new job as executive director of a planned $200-million aquarium in Atlanta.

Coming up this week

On Tuesday, the state Legislature meets again in special session to wrestle the budget to a manageable size. Gov. Jeb Bush has said lost tourism after Sept. 11 has created a $1-billion hole in the state's budget. And lawmakers are expected to meet next week to reduce state spending -- including money for education -- to cover the gap.

Look up in the sky! It's birds, led by a plane! Tuesday could be a historic day in the Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge in Citrus County as six whooping cranes are led by an ultralight plane for their winter respite. Researchers are expected to complete the last leg in a 1,200-mile migration to save one of the world's rarest species. Cranes learn how to migrate from older generations, but there are no wild whoopers in the East so the ultralights were used to lead them.

-- Compiled by Times staff writer Sharon Kennedy Wynne

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