What really brought about the end to Tampa Bay's decades long "Water Wars?
This thread occurred in April 2009 after I heard Cynthia Barnett give a talk in which she suggested Florida is not committing enough attention or dollars on alternative water supplies. My email was to inform her of SWFWMD's specific efforts in that regard and gave its participation in bringing about the historic "Tampa Bay Partnership Plan" as an example of its efforts.
From: Sonny Vergara
To: Cynthia BARNETT
Sent: Monday, April 6, 2009 5:05:11 PM
Subject: Alternative Water Supply Funding
Good morning, Cynthia!
It’s trying to rain here. Glory!
When you spoke to the group in Tampa recently, you made the point that it was unfortunate more wasn’t being spent on alternative water supplies and urging the public to be more conservative and use less water. This was in support of your position that continuing to pump more groundwater and divert more surface water to meet growth needs isn’t sustainable, with which I agree by the way. You suggested it was shortsighted and unwise, therefore, that the legislature was in the process of reducing the funds it had been allocating for development of alternative water supplies for the last few years, a threat to both the environment and the state’s growth-based economy.
I suggested that it might be of interest to you to find out what the water management districts have been spending on alternative water supplies and water conservation. My thought was that when analyzed, you would find that what the state was putting into the program was paltry to the point of being irrelevant compared to that of the districts. So, I asked Gene Schiller (SWFWMD Deputy Director) to give me the numbers that SWFWMD has spent over the last ten years. I am right. It is an astounding $856,176,165! Nearly a billion, just within the 16 counties of SWFWMD! (see attachment)
My point is that it’s going to take decades and billions to meet the needs of the future and what the legislature is contributing is laughable. I think I remember the legislature has been funding something like 20 to 25 million a year for the entire state. That’s about what it costs to build one small conventional water treatment plant. What it will no longer be contributing, if it’s no more than that, therefore, is not going to make a ripple of difference to the currently ongoing efforts by the water management districts, in my opinion, or meeting the state’s growing needs.
In context, it was Joe Davis of Wauchula, as a SWFWMD Governing Board member, who strove to establish what would become the most progressive and assertive effort in the state and maybe even the nation, to change the way water use was occurring by both residential, agricultural and other commercial users in our area.
What he did was convince the governing board and the district’s basin boards to begin setting aside $20 million each, a total of $40 million a year, for development of alternative water supplies. It was called the New Water Source Initiative. And, it was this fund which, after he had left the Board and the funds cumulative total was approaching about $100 million, that put us in a position to contemplate the precedent-setting Partnership Agreement with, then, West Coast Regional Water Supply Authority.
Ultimately, the District’s total commitment for the agreement was about $300 million including its participation in the cost of the desalination plant at TECO and the land for the 15 billion-gallon Young Reservoir (for which the district used about $26 million of state land funds, as I remember).
One final thought. I keep hearing how the so-called “water wars” were brought to an end by the restructuring of West Coast into Tampa Bay Water. That’s like saying it was the gasoline engine that brought about the Model A Ford. In one sense it’s not exactly untrue, but in another it completely belies the fact that it was Henry Ford who conceived the revolutionary idea of building many widgets at a time by moving them along a line and letting a string of stationary assemblers put the part for which they were responsible on each widget as it passed. This instead of a bunch of people building one widget at a time, of course. Thus it was mass production that made the Model A affordable, and it was affordability combined with Henry Ford’s entrepreneurial genius, not the gasoline engine, that made the Model A such an historic success.
Similarly, it was SWFWMD’s intentional shift away from dependence upon its use of regulatory police powers and its new focus on the strategic commitment of funds that gave West Coast the means and the motivation to begin building its way out of the water “hole” it was in. And it was being able to get SWFWMD’s funding and becoming motivated to achieve the goals of the Partnership Agreement that required West Coast to be reorganized into Tampa Bay Water. Tampa Water did not come about through some internal revelation of genius or political largesse by its continuously feuding members. So, the water wars were ended not by the birth of Tampa Bay Water as much as it was by the strategic targeting of dollars by SWFWMD and its reaching agreement with West Coast on how those dollars would be used.
I should also mention that it was the unwavering courage and larger-than-life drive of Roy Harrell (SWFWMD Board member of 12 years and chairman when the agreement was being negotiated) who saw the opportunity presented by Joe Davis’ New Water Source Initiative funds and conceived the idea that eventually resulted in the Partnership Agreement.
To close, you should feel free to contact Gene Directly at SWFWMD: gene.schiller@swfwmd.state.fl.us or 352-796-7211.
Again, I much enjoyed your comments both before the group and on my copy of Mirage. Am certain you’ll be getting a call from Oprah anytime asking if she can promote it on her show.
Regards,
Sonny
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From: Gene.Schiller@swfwmd.state.fl.us
Sent: Monday, April 06, 2009 1:21 PM
To: Sonny Vergara
Subject: Re: Alternative Water Supply Funding
Sonny, the majority of the dollars mentioned are just District funding with a like amount provided by the cooperators for an investment in access of $1.5 billion thru partnerships. Take care.
Gene Schiller
Deputy Executive Director
Management Services
SWFWMD
352/796-7211, ext. 4605
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From: Sonny Vergara
To: Cynthia BARNETT
Sent: Monday, April 6, 2009 5:05:11 PM
Subject: Alternative Water Supply Funding
Cynthia,
Please see Gene’s comment after he read what I sent to you. He makes the point that the district’s expenditures were only about half of the real total. Since most of the contracts entered by the district with its partners requires them to be an equal contributor thereby essentially doubling the amount in play.
Sonny
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To: Sonny Vergara
From: Cynthia BARNETT
Dear Sonny & Gene,
Hello, thank you as always for your emails Sonny, I hope that you keep them coming. I always learn a lot from them. I thank you for the background on the water wars. Yes, understand the very paltry amount of money that the Legislature is spending on anything related to water. I find it so odd that the entire country is swept up in a green craze that ignores the primary color -- blue. I was doing some national research and found that Sacramento, which prides itself on being green and calls itself "Sustainable Sacramento" has the highest per-capita water use in California ...in one suburb nearly 500 gallons per person per day.
Not necessarily "alternative" vs. groundwater/surfacewater, I was trying to make the point that we spend so much more attention and money on the "hard path" water-supply projects than the "soft path" -- demand-management which, as SWFWMD has proven better than any other district, can get you to the large numbers of gallons that you get to by taking the hard path. Your numbers seem to confirm that ... it looks like conservation project spending is about 1% this year.
At any rate, when I speak in SW Florida, I usually do say that SWFWMD is making inroads on the demand side, while the state as a whole doesn't have the vision. Here is the direct line that I use:
"I do want to say that I think southwest Florida is doing a better job than anyone else in the state of helping farmers reduce water use. For example, the West-Central Florida Water Restoration Action Plan, or WRAP, envisions offsetting 40 million gallons of agricultural water use a day in this region by 2025. But again, statewide, our top priority is on building new water-supply projects rather than helping farmers, other businesses and people use less."
I think the false premise is the idea that we need more and more water in the future to grow and prosper. In everything we do as a society, we are using less and less, even as we grow, and even as we prosper. It doesn't have to be this way. It's up to us. I think Americans' buy-in on the green craze would be equally passionate on the "blue" side, but it is oddly being left-out of both the state and national conversation. Why do you think this is?
Cynthia Barnett
Senior writer, Florida Trend magazine (www.floridatrend.com)
Author, Mirage: Florida and the Vanishing Water of the Eastern U.S. (www.cynthiabarnett.net)
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