| FKAA
explores options for more water
BY LAURIE KARNATZ
Citizen Staff
The Florida Keys Aqueduct
Authority will likely have to spend more than $40 million in the next
five years and an additional $20 million by 2015 to ensure an adequate
water supply for Keys residents and visitors.
The Aqueduct Authority
Board, meeting in Key Largo on Thursday, unanimously approved the conceptual plan to augment
the Keys water supply. But the five-member panel wasn't thrilled with
the cost. Or what it means: higher water rates for customers who already
pay more than anyone else in
South Florida.
"That's $64 million, quick,"
said board member Bob Dean. The project "doesn't sound like much, but we
have to pay the bill."
Pointing to rampant
development in Miami-Dade County, board member David Ritz said, "It's
very frustrating that we go through growth control" and continue to
struggle because of restrictions on water use in the Keys while
Miami-Dade County does not.
Currently, a proposed
6,000-home development is being considered for an area in South
Miami-Dade near the 18-Mile Stretch, Ritz said. That single development,
if approved, will in one fell swoop exceed all the development allowed
in the Keys for the foreseeable future, he said.
"I'm just not sure of the
fairness issue," Ritz said.
Staff estimated the first
phase of the plan to provide additional water to the Keys would result
in a 15 percent to 18 percent increase in water rates unless some other
method for paying for the project is found.
"We could try to offset it
by increasing system development fees for new development," said Deputy
Director Kerry Shelby. But whether the fees would come in a timely
manner is questionable, he said.
Specific spending requests
to implement the plan must come back to the board for approval, but
staff and consultants told the board that time was of the essence. In
fact, over the next three years, the Keys are at high risk of running
short of water during the dry season when strict limits are placed on
how much water the agency can pull from its Florida City well field.
One reason for restrictions
on the amount of water than can be drawn from the Aqueduct Authority's
wellfield is its close proximity to Everglades National Park, said
Executive Director Jim Reynolds. Another is the threat of saltwater
intrusion if too much water is drawn from the wells during dry season.
Saltwater intrusion would permanently ruin the well field, he said.
Another issue facing the
agency is changes in water use in the Keys, said Engineering Director
Norman Hatch. Historically, per capita water use in the Keys has been
far less than on the mainland.
But a changing Keys
population is also using more water, Hatch said. Even though the
permanent population is expected to increase only from about 81,700 now
to 84,600 by 2025, water use is expected to increase by about 6 million
gallons per day, he said.
In order to accommodate that
increase in use, the agency staff is recommending drilling seven new
wells to draw brackish water from the Floridan Aquifer. That water would
be processed in a reverse osmosis plant, which also is part of the
project cost, and mixed with fresh water drawn from the Biscayne
Aquifer. The Biscayne Aquifer is the water supply for all of South
Florida from the Palm Beaches to Key West.
In addition, the agency — at
the behest of the South Florida Water Management District, which
controls how much water can be taken from agency wells — plans to create
a so-called aquifer storage and recovery system. That project entails
injecting underground excess freshwater collected during the rainy
season back into the ground, then pulling it back up when needed in the
dry season.
While the process is working
well for Miami-Dade whose wellfields are further north, there is no way
to know whether it will work for the Aqueduct Authority, Reynolds said.
The geology of South Florida
is like "Swiss cheese" and "we won't know until we try it" he said. A
similar project in the Lower Keys failed a number of years ago, he said.
Said board member Ritz: "It doesn't look like we're going to
run out of water.
We're just going to run out of cheap water."
lkarnatz@keysnews.com
|
