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Desal saga takes on a storybook qualityBy HOWARD TROXLER © St. Petersburg Times, published June 15, 1998 If you ask the alleged wolf, however, you'll be assured that nobody is trying to blow anybody's house down. These are the four companies in the running to build a plant that will turn seawater into drinking water for the Tampa Bay area. Three of them aren't too crazy about each other. But they have this in common -- they are even less keen on the fourth one. What is this fourth? It is a company called Progress Energy Corp., based in St. Petersburg. Progress Energy is a subsidiary of Florida Progress Corp. Florida Progress Corp. is the parent company of -- ta da! -- Florida Power Corp. That's right. The same folks who own the electric company also want to get into the water business. Today, we might find out whether Progress Energy has, in fact, blown down the competition. The government board that supplies water to Tampa Bay -- it is about to get a new name, "Tampa Bay Water" -- is meeting today, and might winnow down the list of finalists. The board could keep talks going with two, three or even all four. In theory, it could even choose just one. Lots of fingers are crossed. The stakes are large. We're talking about a desalination plant that will cost anywhere from $70- to $100-million, maybe some of it your money. Progress Energy wants to build its plant just above the Pasco County line, at the site of its Anclote power plant. The salty discharge would be safely diluted in the power plant's cooling canal, and sent back into the gulf. (The company originally wanted to build near Oldsmar, dumping its byproduct into the top of Tampa Bay, but just about nobody else liked that idea.) A second competitor, named the Florida Seawater Desalination Co. -- backed by Du Pont -- also wants to build in the Anclote area. A third group, led by the engineering firm of Stone & Webster, wants to build on the southeast coast of Tampa Bay, known as the Big Bend, near Tampa Electric Co.'s power plant. That's the same place proposed by the fourth group, which is called Florida Water Partners. Both of these groups say the bay gets flushed enough by tides to make their location safe. Which plan is best? A consultant has ranked them with letter grades based on location, environmental effects, ease of getting permits, water quality and other terms. But the grades have some of the competitors unhappy. Take the Du Pont group. It says it can take seawater either out of the gulf or pump it out of the ground near the coast -- but it was graded only on the pumping option, which got lower marks. The rivals complain the consultant has graded some of the bidders on apples, and some of them on oranges. The companies are using different points in the pipeline to predict their water quality. They might be giving different bottom lines, depending on which costs are passed to the customer. Do we know all the true costs of moving water from the Big Bend sites? What is the actual risk of the Superfund site close to Du Pont's Anclote location? Has the electric company, Florida Power, treated outside competitors fairly compared to Progress Energy? Even if it is technically safe, is it politically possible to discharge into Tampa Bay? If not, and the board chooses Progress and a Big Bend site, does Progress win by default? Is Du Pont's site politically feasible, given the opposition of Tarpon Springs? Questions, questions, apples versus oranges. Each of the three little pigs wants to be in the final round against Progress, which they all assume is the front-runner. I'll huff, and I'll puff...
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his is a tale about Three Little Pigs and a Big Bad Wolf -- that is, if you believe the little pigs' side of the story.
