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Manatee's Water Supply Inadequate: County Must Develop New Resources for Burgeoning Population

Posted on: Tuesday, 21 March 2006, 09:00 CST

By James A. Jones Jr., The Bradenton Herald, Fla.

Mar. 21--MANATEE -- Bound contractually to export water to Sarasota County through 2025, Manatee County will be looking for regional help well before then to augment its own water supply.

John Zimmerman, Manatee County's water manager, confirmed Monday he is preparing a presentation to the county commission saying population growth will force development of local water sources sooner than originally planned. A date for the presentation has not been set, he said.

After 2014, Manatee County will be looking to the Peace River/Manasota Regional Water Supply Authority for help in developing local, untapped water resources, Zimmerman said.

Providing the urgency to ensure an adequate water supply are thousands of new residents.

Nearly 11,000 new residents called Manatee County home in 2005, The Herald reported last week.

The county was home to more than 306,000 people in 2005, according to Census figures. The county's population has grown more than 30,000, since 2001, with much of the new growth in East Manatee.

"It's something we have to do from here on out; it's part of our annual requirement," Zimmerman said of sharing needs with the water authority.

An agreement between the authority and four southwest Florida counties -- Manatee, Sarasota, Charlotte and DeSoto -- was cemented in October.

Under the agreement, the partners share costs for building and operating water systems, based on how much water each partner requests and receives, according to Herald archives.

Manatee County will not pay for or receive any water in the contract's early years.

Manatee commissioners last June said they are interested in possibly buying an average of 5 million gallons per day starting in January 2014, according to Herald archives.

Zimmerman was reluctant to provide any revised statistics about water use needs because he hasn't had an opportunity yet to brief commissioners.

But he said Manatee has water resources that can be developed. "It can be developed in Manatee County for Manatee County," Zimmerman said.

The county may be able to use credits from the MARS program to develop the new sources, he said.

MARS, an acronym for Manatee Agricultural Reuse Supply, was conceived in 1994 to connect the county's sewage treatment plants so that reclaimed water could be pumped to farms and housing subdivisions for the irrigation of crops and landscaping, according to Herald archives.

One water resource that won't be developed as a drinking water source in Manatee County is saltwater from the Gulf of Mexico. County commissioners shot that idea down in October because of concerns over salt by-products and the creation of organic compounds, according to Herald archives.

County Commissioner Jane von Hahmann, reached at home Monday night, said that it's not news that Manatee County faces a looming water supply problem.

"Maybe the specifics of how we get there and the dollar costs may be new knowledge," von Hahmann said. "We never sat back as a county and waited to reach a critical point. We really are aware there are issues out there."

Some of the approaches to solving the problem could center on increasing reservoir capacity, opening new wells and providing more intensive treatment to water from wells previously considered too expensive to treat, she said.

James A. Jones Jr., East

Manatee editor, can be reached at 708-7916 or at jajones1@HeraldToday.com [mailto:jajones1@HeraldToday.com].

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Bradenton Herald, Fla.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The Bradenton Herald (Bradenton, Fla.)

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