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Water Usage Near Peak: Desalination Plant on Stock Island is Put to Work

Posted on: Monday, 27 March 2006, 12:00 CST

By Alyson Matley, Florida Keys Keynoter, Marathon

Mar. 25--In an effort to stave off potential water-supply problems, the Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority has fired up its Stock Island reverse osmosis plant, supplementing the Keys' water supply with an additional million gallons of water per day.

The plant makes drinking water out of the surrounding saltwater.

Usually the Keys get their water from the freshwater Biscayne Aquifer in Miami-Dade County. Currently the Aqueduct Authority is pumping 20 million to 21 million gallons a day from the aquifer, just under the 22.3 million a day allowed under a South Florida Water Management District permit.

"We're trying, over a six-month period, to keep our usage down to an average of 17 million gallons a day," said Jim Reynolds, executive director of the Aqueduct Authority.

He said currently, the utility is pumping 1 million to 2 million more gallons per day than is average for this time of year.

The Stock Island desalinization plant is the only one in the country currently taking pure saltwater and turning it into household drinking water, according to plant manager Roy Coley.

Tampa opened a desalination plant in the spring of 2003 and it's pumped some 5 billion gallons of drinking water. But it was taken off line in 2004 due to efficiency problems, which are in the process of being fixed. It's expected to reopen this fall.

Although the Stock Island plant helps here, Reynolds says the Aqueduct Authority is using other measures to keep local usage within the parameters permitted by the Water Management District.

"We've already reduced the system pressure by 5 pounds per square inch," Reynolds said. "That reduces water use. We may need to do that again. We're asking people to voluntarily reduce their water use, particularly with irrigation."

He noted that this dry season is not particularly drier than last year. But new landscaping, a common sight these days since so much died in Hurricane Wilma's saltwater storm surge, is taxing the system.

Kim Gabel, horticulture agent for the Monroe County Cooperative Extension Service, says people should try to put off renewing their landscaping until the dry season ends.

New plants need more water to get established, she says, adding that a transplanted plant would "just survive" if watered twice a week.

"If you want one to thrive, there's a formula, beginning with watering it every day for the first two weeks," she said.

But the need to save water doesn't make gardeners the bad guys.

"It's cool out there this time of year," Reynolds said. "And people with second homes are only here this time of year. We'd prefer they'd do it during the wet season. But the wet season doesn't get here until June or July, and it's too hot to do anything but be out on the boat."

"People are frustrated and they want something lush," Gabel said. "For those who can, wait until rainy season."

She also warned that a lot of salt has remained in the soil from the flooding that accompanied the passage of Wilma. Once the rainy season begins, that salt will be flushed from the ground and new plants will do better.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Florida Keys Keynoter, Marathon

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: Florida Keys Keynoter, Marathon, Fla.

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