- Read the entire proposal
Having less water in Florida could lead to building some really big water lines.
Central Florida utility managers have begun circulating long-term proposals to lay hundreds of miles of interconnected pipelines that could cross nine counties to satisfy growing demand for drinkable water.
About 3 million people now live in that area, which reaches from St. Johns and Putnam counties to Central Florida suburbs west of Orlando.
That count is expected to top 5 million by 2030, a rough timeframe some supporters have set for having a large network in place. Scientists at the St. Johns River Water Management District have tentatively projected that water demand by then could exceed groundwater supplies in nearly every part of Northeast Florida and eastern Central Florida.
The pipelines, perhaps close to 500 miles of them, would be designed to move water from any end of the system to another, tapping river and ocean sources that haven't been developed yet. The plan shows the St. Johns and Ocklawaha rivers as water sources, as are desalination plants in Flagler and Volusia counties. The network would also reach Lake, Marion, Orange, Seminole and Sumter counties.
"I think it's a matter of time before the utilities in your neck of the woods are looking at something" similar, said Robert Thielhelm, a City Council member from Mount Dora in Lake County who is one of the plan's most visible advocates.
"We're going to have droughts, pollution, breakdowns in a [water treatment] plant. ... The need is going to be there to move water around."
Such a vast system faces financial and legal obstacles, and is only a concept at present. Supporters debuted the idea last week to a collection of Lake County elected officials, who decided to circulate the proposal to local governments around that county for comment.
The pipe system alone, not counting plants to treat or desalinate water, has been projected to cost more than $1.8 billion if it were built now. Supporters have suggested that a new and undefined government agency, likely empowered to impose property taxes, may be needed to build and run the system.
Thielhelm said the Florida Legislature would almost certainly have to authorize steps involved in building the pipeline but said the plan isn't ready to be presented to state lawmakers.
The plan has alarmed some environmental advocates, who see it as a choice that sacrifices rivers, lakes and wildlife in favor of vast new developments and over-watered lawns.
"It is clearly a proposal that would fuel extensive additional growth, some would say endless growth, at the expense of water resources and with very little attention paid to conservation," said Charles Lee, director of advocacy for Audubon of Florida.
"There are really only two alternatives here," Lee said. "One is that you develop a massive pipe system if we're going to continue to waste water. ... Or you get serious about conservation."
Agencies and activists have talked about the value of conservation in Central Florida for a number of years, but the level of commitment to that goal is heavily debated.
Efforts to write more conservation measures into law - for example, requiring older homes to be fitted with water-saving toilets or new controls on lawn sprinklers when owners resell them - have been fought vigorously by some politicians.
And activists argue that water managers, who are responsible for protecting and balancing the supply of water for both people and plants and animals, are already too focused on meeting utilities' demands. Much of that argument involves criticism of water managers' role in planning new water sources that are the heart of the pipeline plan.
"These communities are being forced down this road by the water management district," said St. Johns Riverkeeper Neil Armingeon, whose organization sued last year to fight a proposal to withdraw 5.5 million gallons daily from the St. Johns River for use by Seminole County's utility system.
The management district previously estimated up to 262 million gallons of water could be removed daily from the St. Johns and Ocklawaha without causing environmental harm, but the agency is now reexamining that issue with input from a federal science panel.
The management district hasn't taken a position on the pipeline system, agency spokeswoman Teresa Monson said.
She said executive director Kirby Green and a senior resource manager talked with the pipeline's chief advocates a couple of weeks ago at the supporters' request, but only to understand what's being discussed.
"We're willing to listen to ideas - good ideas, bad ideas, we're willing to discuss," Monson said. She noted that JEA, which serves customers in four counties, already has a pipeline network connecting many of its wells.
"There's nothing wrong with these municipalities trying to come up with creative solutions to a problem they're all experiencing," Monson said.
Central Florida Regional Water Transmission System—A Proposal
In 1994, St. Johns River Water Management District, based on its Water Supply Needs and Sources Assessment, advised the East Central Florida Public Utilities to begin planning for alternatives to ground water due to growth projections and projected unacceptable water resources impacts. More recent evaluations based on updated computer modeling of the Floridan and surficial aquifers confirmed the projected unacceptable impacts to aquifer-dependent water resources; including lakes, wetlands and springs. Three water management districts, South Florida (SFWMD), Southwest Florida (SWFWMD) and St. Johns River (SJRWMD) have agreed to limit ground water withdrawals to the 2013 demands within the Central Florida Coordination Area (CFCA). The CFCA includes all or parts of Lake, Orange, Osceola, Polk and Seminole counties.
The water management districts, in cooperation with the CFCA utilities, began the development of conceptual alternative water supply project options. The initial approach for the SJRWMD portion of the CFCA was developed around two sources of surface water, the St. Johns and the Lower Ocklawaha Rivers. Each option consisted of a water supply facility along with a dedicated transmission system. Due to the complexity and cost associated with permitting and construction of these alternative systems, the various utilities realized the need to pool resources and take advantage of purported economies of scale. Conceptual plans for alternative water supply systems were developed by SJRWMD for the Lower Ocklawaha River; the St. Johns River at Deland, Yankee Lake, State Road 46 and Taylor Creek; and for seawater desalination along the Coquina Coast (Flagler County).
Initial estimates for transmission of water produced by the alternative supply facilities showed this element to be very costly, often representing more than one-half of the total capital cost for the entire project. It was assumed that the new water sources would be used to meet “base load” and that existing groundwater sources would be used to meet peak day demands. Pipelines sized to carry “base load” (average day) demands at project “buildout” to the participants in a given supply project were hypothesized and used to estimate costs. Capital, operating and maintenance costs for each pipe segment (and associated repumping stations) were preliminarily apportioned to the various downstream subscribers based on percentage of pipe capacity required by each downstream user.
There are inherent uncertainties associated with any individual water supply withdrawal point regardless of source. Extreme events including hurricanes, floods, droughts and source water contamination, as well as mechanical failure could cause periodic system failure and interruption of product water delivery. It is clear that independent systems and one way transmission pipelines lack the operational flexibility that would be provided by an interconnected regional transmission system. As envisioned, such a system would be able to transport water from any connected source to any connected demand center. An integrated interconnected transmission system would provide a level of redundancy and reliability not provided by a series of fully independent water supply projects. In addition, SJRWMD has stated that once a surface water supply withdrawal is permitted, the permit will be subject to periodic renewal wherein environmental impacts will be evaluated and third party challenges may be offered. The SJRWMD statement that a surface water source could be eliminated or reduced due to future environmental or political actions is further justification that a integrated interconnected pipeline network is necessary to accommodate movement of water throughout the region to avoid dependence on any given source.
Probably the most challenging aspect of the regional alternative water supply initiative, however, is not engineering, system redundancy or science related. It is the issue of ownership and governance. Models in the region exist for sharing wastewater plant capacity (South Central Regional Wastewater System Treatment and Disposal Board, etc. in Brevard County) and wastewater collection and transmission (South Seminole North Orange County Wastewater Transmission Authority). Few, if any, examples exist in Florida for potable water transmission governance. To accomplish regional pipeline governance, separate interlocal agreements for each pipeline segment could be negotiated with each combination of users, but this concept could, for example in the case of the transmission system contemplated for the Yankee Lake Plant, result in numerous agreements between combinations of parties in different Counties, multiple construction contracts, and extremely difficult and complex coordination issues. Of equal concern is the lack of flexibility for others who were not part of the original group that built them to use these pipelines in the future. Such use would require that excess capacity to be included in the original design. Finally, routine operation and maintenance would suffer from the same limitations and constraints.
Funding the shared pipeline projects using debt would be complicated and very difficult because no revenue stream would be associated with the pipelines themselves. For the Yankee Lake Project the Seminole County Commission has stated as part of their “deal points” with their “partners” that they would strongly prefer the transmission systems be handled “by others” but that they would require assurances that they would be constructed to ensure the use of their plant facilities. Obviously they are concerned with pipeline construction. However, neither the County nor their potential partners have formulated a solution that has been embraced.
By interconnecting the various alternative water supply projects stated earlier into one integrated system, a Central Florida Water Transmission concept is proposed. The system would be supplied with potable water from all the available alternative water supply sources that can be permitted thus providing the necessary reliability to meet the area’s needs. The proposed system modifies existing single-source systems by eliminating redundant pipe sections, expanding selected pipe sections to allow movement of water in either direction and employing dual paths that provide operational flexibility. This gives local and regional water planners a wide array of source and transmission options from which to meet needs. The conceptual system consists of over 500 miles of pipe ranging in size from 8 inches in diameter up to 72 inches and there are 16 booster pumping stations. The system could be built in phases and ultimately be extended across the peninsula giving the ability to be supplied with potable water from desalination plants sited along both coasts and from water treatment plants supplied from all available permittable surface water options.
Centralized computer control and monitoring could be used to properly manage the transmission and delivery of water to meet the demands of the various utilities. Such a control system could be configured to provide additional safety and security features such as leak detection, remote valve operation to isolate a break, remote booster pump station operation and detection of unauthorized activity within the system corridors.
The organization that would design, construct, operate and maintain the regional water transmission system could be an adjunct to the Water Management Districts or a separate entity. It is proposed that such an organization, however structured, be funded with ad valorem taxes and grant funds. This is, in the opinion of the authors of this document, the single most effective incentive that could be offered by State of Florida to encourage multiple utilities to subscribe to centralized alternative water supply projects.
Robert Thielhelm Keith Riger Ray Sharp
City of Mt. Dora City of DeLand City of Leesburg
Hundreds of miles of pipelines would cross nine counties
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