Will mega-pipeline fix water problems or ruin Central Florida

Imagine 15 or 30 years from now, turning on your kitchen faucet. A few drops dribble into the sink, then the water stops. It’s gone.

That’s what could happen without a large-scale plan to supply water to Central Floridians, DeLand Public Services Director Keith Riger said.

A couple of years ago, the St. Johns River Water Management District said Central Florida could not rely on the Floridan Aquifer as a source of drinking water beyond 2013.

Utilities would have to find alternatives to deep wells drilled to draw water from the aquifer far below.

Riger, along with Robert Thielhelm for the City of Mount Dora and Ray Sharp for the City of Leesburg, wrote a paper proposing a solution.

It calls for using Coquina Coast, a proposed ocean-water desalinization plant off Flagler County, along with water plants proposed on the St. Johns River and the Lower Ocklawaha River. These new water sources would be connected by a vast 500-mile pipeline crisscrossing Central Florida, to take water where it’s needed.

The three-city consortium will make a presentation on the project to the Water Authority of Volusia technical advisory committee at 8:30 a.m. Friday, March 27, at the WAV Conference Room at 2570 W. International Speedway Blvd. in Daytona Beach.

The authors explained the plan to the Lake County Water Alliance at a Leesburg meeting Feb. 12. Alliance members said they want more input from other elected boards before making any decision.

The water-transmission pipeline in still in the conceptual stages.

The pipeline would carry water produced at the Yankee Lake and Taylor Creek plants on the St. Johns River in Seminole County, and water drawn from the Lower Ocklawaha River, in addition to any plant built on the river at DeLand.

The overall cost? More than $1 billion, perhaps several billion. Hence the necessity to pool resources.

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Source: Beacon Online