Panel Considers Water Action Plan

LAKELAND | We're in a drought, but apart from giving a token nod to the fact by declaring April as Water Conservation Month, what kind of real conservation efforts are going on locally?

At the moment the effort seems to be limited to reminders about water restrictions stuffed in water bills, conservation tips on government Web sites and conditions on water permit renewals in which local officials promise to do better than they did in the past.

The future will provide a more specific approach if Polk County's proposed Water Conservation Action Plan is any guide.

The plan, which is still being studied by the county's Water Policy Advisory Committee, goes well beyond the gentle persuasion that seems to typify most of the local

water-conservation efforts.

One proposal would be to treat violations of water restrictions more seriously by:

Increasing fines for violations and using the revenue from fines to pay for the enforcement effort.

Using neighborhood volunteers to help code enforcement officers and police to spot violations.

Making the enforcement uniform throughout the county.

"We're trying to find an effective way to fund water conservation,'' said Pamela Reynolds, Polk's water conservation coordinator, who said that enforcing watering rules has not been a high priority in the past.

Committee Chairman Marian Ryan agreed.

"The water management districts say conservation is the easiest water supply, but it is the bottom of our priorities,'' Ryan said.

In addition to trying to find a way to more aggressively enforce watering restrictions, some of the other water conservation measures included in the plan are:

Plumbing retrofits for homes and apartments.

Rain and moisture sensor rebates.

Establishing monetary incentives for people who don't have automatic irrigation systems, or who use alternative water supplies for irrigation.

In addition, the plan calls for setting up a monitoring program to measure water-use efficiency to determine how much water is being saved.

Reynolds said there is no estimated cost for implementing the plan, which will require approval by the County Commission.

But Roger Griffiths, one of the committee members, said county officials may face resistance from the general public because they feel they're being misled.

"We're not conserving, we're asking people to reallocate the water to someone else,'' Griffiths said. "That's why the general public is not backing this.''

He said the problem is that water management districts continue to issue permits because the law requires them to do so as long as the request for the water is for "a reasonable and beneficial use.''

Reynolds said while there isn't a water-supply shortage in Florida, there is a shortage of relatively cheap, easily exploitable water supplies.

Under the current regional agreements, Central Florida water managers have agreed not to issue new permits for wells drawing water from the Floridan aquifer after 2013, which has pushed utilities to seek more alternative sources.

Those alternative sources include treated sewage, stormwater and siphoning water from rivers and lakes.

Mike Britt, another committee member, said the challenge will be managing water supplies farther into the future, such as to 2030 and beyond to accommodate growth.

"The growth is not going to stop,'' Britt said. "It's our job to enforce that to some extent.''