Environmental Intersection by George Lindemann

The Miami Herald EditorialPosted on Sun, Jul. 29, 2012

A broken water line in Little Haiti floods homes and some streets waist-high. The aging wastewater treatment plant on Virginia Key spills 19 million gallons of untreated waste into the ocean. A water main break in Hialeah creates a sinkhole. A burst pipe pours untreated sewage straight into Biscayne Bay.

Over the past two years broken sewer pipes have spewed 47 million gallons of stinky waste onto roads and homes and into Miami-Dade waterways all the way from farmlands in the southern tip of the county to the northern border with Broward, which also is facing major sewer system breakdowns.

With 7,500 miles of sewer lines built into Miami-Dade County’s antiquated system, which is a half-century old in some sections, and with 15 municipal water and/or sewer utilities and the county’s Water and Sewer Department responsible for the upgrades, there has been a lot of finger-pointing but little action to tackle this billion-dollar mess. Indeed, 20 years ago a Miami-Dade grand jury warned that “the Miami River and Biscayne Bay would experience the worst environmental catastrophes in modern history” if nothing got done.

Now, the Environmental Protection Agency is demanding action and the county is in negotiations with federal authorities to come up with a solid plan to fix the treatment plants and faulty pipes.

The last time EPA stepped in because of the county’s neglect was in 1996 when stormwater drainage problems were harming the Miami River and Biscayne Bay. The county has spent $600 million over that time, saving about 100 million gallons of water a day.

Yet the sewer part of the job keeps getting put off — at residents’ peril and with great economic risk to the area’s vibrant tourism industry. Instead of having a pro-active program that repairs aging pipes and upgrades wastewater stations, the county for years used excess money from the residents’ sewer fees to balance the county’s overall budget.

It’s time to increase fees and target that money directly to the repairs that are needed. As it is, the fees county water users pay are among the lowest of any comparable-sized area.

Whether Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez is re-elected or Commission Chairman Joe Martinez gets the voters’ nod, the most important issue affecting the health, safety and economic well-being of the county’s residents is the antiquated water and sewer system.

Last year, Mr. Gimenez offered a budget that took $25 million from the sewer funds as a “loan” to balance the county’s books — an effort aimed at not having to lay off more county workers or reduce crucial services to residents. This year’s budget proposal does not dip into the sewer funds and the loan will start getting repaid in 2014. That’s the right thing to do.

Complicating the problem are about 100 miles of substandard piping laid out by a now-defunct company, including the sewer main running under Government Cut to Virginia Key — a potential catastrophe for this area’s tourism.

Mr. Gimenez and Mr. Martinez have pledged to work on a solution, and Mr. Gimenez’s proposed budget includes fee increases that would be staggered over several years to help pay for the upgrades. The mayor also says the county can bond about $300 million and is working with the EPA to come up with a plan to meet federal clean water requirements. Good.

True, this is an inherited mess. Past administrations delayed the inevitable. But no more excuses. Let’s fix this economic disaster in the making. It’s past time.

Posted on July 24, 2012

A coalition of environmental groups is suing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, arguing that the way the agency dumps polluted water from Lake Okeechobee is causing toxic algae blooms throughout the Caloosahatchee River near Fort Myers.

"This is making people sick, figuratively and literally," said Becky Ayech of the Environmental Coalition of Southwest Florida, citing complaints about everything from nausea to earaches among people who live along the river. "People have a right to clean water."

When heavy rains push the water level in Lake Okeechobee too high, the Corps opens floodgates that dump millions of gallons of lake water into the Caloosahatchee and also into the St. Lucie River on the state's east coast. But the lake water is full of pollutants, especially nutrients that can fuel algae blooms.

Algae blooms have plagued the Caloosahatchee eight of the past 11 years, the lawsuit points out. Last year's algae bloom lasted for eight weeks, during which officials in Glades, Hendry and Lee counties warned residents to avoid contact with the river water and not to eat the fish.

Even worse, according to the suit filed Monday in federal court, is the fact that what the Corps is releasing from the lake is so polluted it forces the shutdown of a water plant that is supposed to use the river to quench the thirst of 40,000 people.

The problem, according to the suit, is that when water levels are low, the Corps holds water back from the rivers —- to the point where the Caloosahatchee sometimes runs backward. That not only lets the freshwater river turn salty, it also bottles up the pollution in the lake and makes it worse when it's finally released, the suit contends.

Corps spokesman John Campbell said the agency normally does not comment on litigation. However, he said, the Corps manages the lake level in accordance with a 2008 guide that was prepared with the help of some environmental groups.

 via evergladesfoundation.org

An internal study by the county’s Water and Sewer Department says deteriorated water and sewage treatment plants, along with aging pipelines, will require more than $1 billion for immediate repairs.

A massive, five-month internal study by the county’s Water & Sewer Department shows a vast deterioration of water and sewage treatment plants, and aging pipelines, and says more than $1 billion is needed immediately for repairs.

TIM CHAPMAN / MIAMI HERALD STAFF

• Final Water and Sewer Report

By Charles Rabin

crabin@MiamiHerald.com

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/07/24/2909494/repair-bill-over-1-billion-to.h...

Miami-Dade County’s three main water treatment plants and nearly 14,000 miles of pipelines are so outdated it would take more than $1.1 billion just to replace the “most deteriorated, vulnerable sections” of the system, a newly released internal study shows.

Corrosion is so pervasive in the county’s water and sewage-treatment plants, and pipes that move water and sewage, that initial repairs could take from three to eight years, the five-month study found.

Each day 300 million gallons of waste and 459 million gallons of drinking water pass through the county’s system — the 10th largest water-and-sewer utility in the nation.

“The infrastructure we have out there is aged,” said John Renfrow, director of the water and sewer department. “Many of the pipes with leaks out there were built at the same time. It reminds me of an apartment where all the lights are put in at the same time, and you know how all the lights go out at the same time.”

Federal regulators told the county two months ago that it must perform repairs and upgrades. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Justice, along with the state Department of Environmental Protection, are expected to take another four months discussing with Miami-Dade how to fix and pay for a system that Renfrow said is “being held together by chewing gum.”

The study, requested by Commissioner Barbara Jordan, shows the majority of the initial fixes — about $736 million of immediate work — is needed for sewer lines. Water lines would take another $364 million to repair.

The county’s main water treatment in Hialeah, and two sewage plants, on Virginia Key and in South Miami-Dade, are 56, 45 and 87 years old, respectively.

Fixing wire and concrete erosion in pipes would cost about $10 million, and fixing water mains, tanks and pumps would cost another $129.4 million, the study estimated.

Using Hialeah’s John E. Preston water treatment plant as a typical example, the report noted that it “has numerous mechanical, electrical and process components which have exceeded the end of their useful economic service lives, which is usually 20 years.” A picture in the report shows a collapsed interior wall in the plant, which has been in operation since 1966.

Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez said not much in the report surprised him.

Gimenez, Renfrow and several commissioners agree it’s going to take a combination of rate hikes, grants and revenue bonds to get the system up to date.

They said a budget decision to forego borrowing $25 million from the water and sewer coffers this year is a good start. That money, if left untouched each year unlike in the past, when it was moved to the county’s general fund, could pay the debt service on a $300 million bond, they said.

And despite not wanting to raise taxes or fees as the economy stumbles along, Gimenez and several commissioners say they expect a water rate hike in the near future. Historically, Miami-Dade has one of the lowest water rates in the state.

The county’s aging system — not unlike similar systems in most major cities throughout the Unites States — is in such disrepair that it has ruptured at least 65 times over the past two years, spilling more than 47 million gallons of untreated human waste into waterways and streets from one end of the county to the other.

Just this week a 36-inch main gave way in Little Haiti, leaving several families distraught and in search of a place to stay until their homes dry out.

Renfrow said his department will pay for home repairs.

“The funny thing is we checked the Little Haiti pipes in June for leaks. We didn’t miss anything,’’ he said. “The material is just old, it’s just going to break.’’

Similar main breaks were the focus of warning letters sent by federal authorities to the county from 2010 through May, when they finally came calling. The letters warned of possible civil penalties of up to $10,000 a day.

Talks between the county and the feds are expected to lead to an agreement over repairs and upgrades, as well as the funding mechanism.

“How it will be paid for will be figure out by us,” Gimenez said.

The report notes that the funding methods are not likely to be similar to the early 1970s when Congress passed the Clean Water Act, and grants were available for about 75 percent of repairs.

 

A new Everglades restoration plan proposed by Gov. Rick Scott will delay restoration and will be unenforceable, according to the group Friends of the Everglades.

U.S. District Judge Alan S. Gold has scheduled a July 18 hearing in Miami on a framework agreement for restoration proposed by Scott in 2011. The $880 million, 12-year agreement was approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on June 13.

While Audubon Florida and the Everglades Foundation supported the proposal, Friends of the Everglades only had issued a short statement last month raising concerns.

Friends of the Everglades and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians sued the federal agency in 2004 for failure to clean up sugar industry pollution flowing into the Everglades. Gold sided with the plaintiffs in 2008 and EPA issued an amended determination in 2010 ordering Florida and the South Florida Water Management District to construct additional stormwater treatment areas to treat phosphorus-rich water.

The new plan proposed by Florida calls for construction of 6,500 acres of additional stormwater treatment areas and water storage areas capable of holding 32 billion gallons, according to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Gold set the July 18 hearing date and required all of the parties in the case to file briefs in response this week.

In its filing, Friends of the Everglades said the proposed new timetable for restoration extends through 2025, five years longer than EPA had directed the state in 2010. The group also has concerns about technical shortcomings in the plan, its lack of interim standards and its enforceability.

In an opinion column submitted to news media, Friends of the Everglades President Alan Farago quoted President Ronald Reagan's approach to nuclear arms negotiations: "Trust, but verify."

"So far, what the state and EPA propose is a step in the right direction but lacks the iron-clad commitments that (Friends founder) Marjory Stoneman Douglas fought for and that our organization is determined to achieve for Florida and the nation’s interest in the Everglades," Farago wrote.

Spokespersons for the DEP and the EPA were invited to comment on Tuesday but had not provided responses by deadline.

DEP's federal court filing said the plan complies with a 2010 court order, EPA's amended determination and the federal Clean Water Act. DEP said no further discussions with EPA are necessary because the matters raised in previous court orders have been resolved.

The EPA said the timetable is based on estimates provided by the South Florida Water Management District for reliably financing and constructing the restoration projects. Assuming a consent order is approved in a timely fashion, all of the issues raised by the court will have been resolved, the federal agency said.

Related Research: Access pleadings and other documents filed in the Friends of the Everglades federal court case.

Reporter Bruce Ritchie can be reached at britchie@thefloridacurrent.com.

 

 

U.S. Supreme Court refuses to hear Florida's case in tri-state water dispute

Bruce Ritchie, 06/25/2012 - 05:28 PM

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The Apalachicola, Chattahoochee and Flint river system. Map credit: Atlanta Regional Commission

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to take up an appeal filed by Florida in the case involving the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river system.

The decision not to hear Florida's request to review an 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling could harm the Apalachicola River and bay, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection said Monday.

Alabama, Florida and Georgia have been fighting in federal court over water since 1990. Alabama and Georgia want water for industry and growing cities, while Florida wants water for fish and wildlife along the Apalachicola River and to support the seafood industry in Apalachicola Bay.

Lake Lanier, a federal reservoir on the Chattahoochee River in north Georgia, has been the focus of the dispute because it provides 60 percent of the storage capacity among the reservoirs on the river system.

U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson in 2009 ruled that Congress must authorize Lake Lanier to provide water to Georgia cities. Without authorization, he ordered that water use be cut off in three years.

But the 11th Circuit overturned the decision and instead directed the Corps of Engineers to analyze its authority related to the Lake Lanier. 

Florida and Alabama in February asked the Supreme Court to review the case. The Supreme Court denied the petition on Monday without comment.

"The department is concerned that the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals decision could result in unbalanced management of the reservoir system, diverting more water from Lake Lanier for local municipal purposes, and depriving Florida of the water flows needed to support the ecology and economy of the River and Bay," Florida DEP said in a statement. "This could allow further disruption of the biological productivity and unique ecosystem of the river and bay and adversely affect endangered species and the bay's hallmark oyster production."

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal said the Supreme Court had affirmed that drinking water always was an authorized use of Lake Lanier.

"We can now move forward with this issue behind us, have the governors work together and come to a long-term agreement that will provide for the water needs of all three states," Deal said in a news release.

The environmental group Apalachicola Riverkeeper said it was disappointed by the decision. Dan Tonsmeire, the group's executive director, said the states now can either focus on sharing water throughout the river basin, as the ACF Stakeholders group has suggested, or begin a new round of litigation.

"I think the most sane thing is to try to sit down and use the best available science and see what we can work out," he said. "I hold out some optimism we will achieve that overall look at how water can be managed in the whole ACF basin."

DEP issues guidelines to water districts for buying, getting rid of state lands

Bruce Ritchie, 06/26/2012 - 01:10 PM

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Water management districts must receive Florida Department of Environmental Protection approval for major land purchases under guidelines published by DEP this month.

The DEP memo, posted on a department website last week, has received a mixed reaction from environmentalists. Some of them last year accused DEP and Gov. Rick Scott of launching a takeover of the districts, which were established by the Legislature in 1972.

Florida has purchased 2.5 million acres since 1990 under Florida Forever and a predecessor land-buying program. State law provides for 30 percent funding to be divided among the five water management districts, although funding has been sharply cut by the Legislature since 2009.

Three months after taking office in 2011, Scott directed DEP to supervise activities of the districts including review and oversight of land acquisition and disposition. Scott said the districts must focus on their core missions of water supply, flood control and resource protection.

The June 8 guidance memo says districts should focus on acquiring conservation easements, which involve paying landowners to conserve land rather than having the state outright buy the property. DEP also says districts should buy land at 90 percent of the appraised value and should find partner agencies to split the cost.

Related Research: Access the directive from Governor Scott and DEP's land acquisition guidelines.

The guidance document requires any purchase of more than $500,000 to be approved by the department. Any purchase below that amount must be approved by the department unless it is for 90 percent or less of the appraised value.

The document calls on districts to sell land that is no longer needed for conservation purposes. However, DEP cautions the districts against eliminating significant landscape linkages, conservation corridors, natural or cultural resources or public recreational opportunities including hunting.

Clay Henderson, a lawyer and member of the Florida Conservation Coalition, said the memo clearly will have a "chilling effect" on new land purchases by districts. He said the districts also are being pressured to sell their lands.

"I'm just tired of being on the defensive," Henderson said. "We are so well-known for our successes with these programs. They have protected some outstanding examples of conservation land across the state and commanded wide support from the public." 

Charles Lee, director of advocacy for Audubon Florida, said he remains concerned about how the districts are identifying land to get rid of. But he said the guidelines have some good language, such as requiring a determination that lands are no longer needed for conservation and avoiding the elimination of conservation corridors and landscape linkages.

"The land acquisition provisions seem to give reasonable latitude for the districts to move forward with purchases, including the $500,000 purchases which don’t even have to be approved by DEP," Lee wrote in an email.

DEP spokesman Patrick Gillespie said department officials met with district representatives in February and they have been following informally following the guidance document since then.

"The purpose of the document is to provide guidance to the water management districts on purchasing land to support their core missions of water supply, water quality, flood control and natural resource protection while being judicious of Florida taxpayer dollars," Gillespie said in an email.

MIAMI -- Python, wild boar and lion fish will be on the menu this weekend in Miami.

Three local chefs will participate Saturday night in a cook-off competition using the invasive species as key ingredients. The goal is to raise awareness about how the animals impact South Florida's ecology - and perhaps even generate an appetite for them.

Haven Gastro-Lounge executive chef Todd Erickson will be cooking braised python. He told the Miami Herald ( http://hrld.us/MMY33e) the event will show how these animals can be a "viable food source."

The other chefs cooking to be named the "Best Invasivore Chef" are: Bradley Herron of Michael's Genuine Food & Drink and Timon Balloo of Sugarcane Raw Bar Grill.

Funds will also be raised for Fertile Earth Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to promoting environmental awareness.

Posted on Mon, May. 14, 2012

Miami-Dade’s leaky pipes: More than 47 million gallons of waste spilled in past two years

By CHARLES RABIN AND CURTIS MORGAN
crabin@MiamiHerald.com

MARICE COHN BAND / MIAMI HERALD STAFF

The central district Wastewater Treatment Plant, on Key Biscayne, Monday.

Miami-Dade County’s antiquated sewer system has ruptured at least 65 times over the past two years, spewing more than 47 million gallons of untreated human waste into waterways and streets from rural South Miami-Dade to the ritzy condos of Brickell Avenue to the Broward County border.

The breaks and blowouts — topping out at nine in a single stinky month last October — were documented in nine warning letters that state environmental regulators sent to the county’s Water and Sewer Department between June 2010 and April.

The letters, warning that the county could be on the hook for “damages and restoration’’ and civil penalties of up to $10,000 a day, were the catalyst for ongoing negotiations with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Department of Justice and Florida Department of Environmental Protection. The talks are expected to end with a legal settlement committing the county to a multibillion-dollar plumbing repair plan — and probable customer rate hikes.

The letters lay out more dirty details of “unauthorized discharges’’ not included in a 78-page draft consent decree released last week that declares the county in violation of federal water quality laws, in large part because some of the foul spills drained into canals and Biscayne Bay.

Many of the leaks from the county’s 7,500 miles of lines were relatively minor, posing minimal traffic disruptions and public health concerns. But at least eight topped 100,000 gallons. Six more released more than 1 million gallons of raw sewage from rusted valves or cracked concrete-and-steel pipes that county engineers acknowledge had long out-lived their intended life span.

The worst problem by far, according to the DEP letters, is the county’s aging Central District Wastewater Plant on Virginia Key, which is designed to discharge partially treated sewage out a pipe more than a mile off shore. State records show that between October and December 2011 four separate failures sent a total of more than 19 million gallons spilling from the plant.

The largest at Virginia Key, on Oct. 9, spilled 17 million gallons of raw sewage.

Doug Yoder, the Water and Sewer Department’s deputy director, blamed it on a broken pin holding a filter screen used to divert “chunks of stuff” from the liquid flow. Once the pin failed, the thick solids built up, triggering a massive back-up that forced workers to shut down that plant and divert incoming sewage to another site, causing even more of an overflow.

The public never heard about that failure, Yoder said, because “nothing actually left the plant site. The overflow went into the storm drains, then back to the plant.”

But three weeks later, on Oct. 31, another million gallons of partially-treated sewage spilled out a relief valve into surrounding bay waters, forcing Miami-Dade to issue no-swimming advisories. That was triggered by a power outage that shut down a pump as operators shifted from a generator to the power grid.

Yoder conceded operators have a difficult task at Virginia Key, the oldest and most decaying of the county’s three plants. It handles some 25 million gallons of raw sewage a day from Surfside, Bal Harbour and Miami Beach. The county has mulled replacing it, which would cost $500 million — money Yoder said the department doesn’t have. He also acknowledged the department has resisted pouring a lot of repair money into a plant it hopes to replace.

“We want to avoid spending a lot to keep it running if we’re going to take it out of service,” he said.

The federal enforcement action isn’t the county’s first. In 1996, Miami-Dade paid a $2 million fine — at the time the largest ever for a U.S. Clean Water Act violation — and agreed to expand the capacity of a system that was constantly pouring raw sewage into the Miami River and Biscayne Bay.

Since then, the department estimates it has spent some $2 billion on upgrades but hasn’t come close to covering needed fixes for a system in which many pipelines are approach a half-century in age or even older.

Blanca Mesa, an activist with the Sierra Club who has raised concerns about the county’s plans to replace only one segment of an aging and fragile sewer pipe under Government Cut, said the failures point to a long history of ignoring problems and putting off proper maintenance. She said today’s problems echo failures detailed in a 1991 grand jury report documenting sewage spills into the Miami River.

“Somebody has to understand we have to set the right priorities in this county, and we haven’t been doing that for a very long time,’’ she said.

Miami-Dade Commission Chairman Joe Martinez agrees the county has to find a way to pay for the repair work. One option might be to issue bonds, Martinez said, but he would insist that property tax bills don’t rise for residents as a result. Martinez said it’s possible that any increase in bond debt would be offset by a decrease in the property tax rate, if home values rise this year, as he expects.

“We’re going to have to wait until the tax rolls come out,” he said. “We definitely need to fix the infrastructure, but we must gain people’s confidence that [the money] will be used for that.”

Mayor Carlos Gimenez said he is waiting to learn how much money the county would need to spend before committing to a financing plan. First he would look to reduce water department costs, he said, then possibly enter some type of private-public partnership.

“The last thing we want to do is put any kind of burden on the public,” he said.

Past political decisions have compounded the sewer department’s problems, by cutting into reserve funds that could have helped finance the system upgrades.

Historically, county leaders tapped water department funds for other departments struggling to make ends meet. Though that practice stopped in 2007, last year the Water and Sewer Department still “loaned’’ $25 million to the county’s general fund to help balance the books. Payback is scheduled to begin in 2014, at $5 million a year.

Right now, the department has three reserve accounts. One is required to maintain a 60-day reserve, or $55.7 million. Another is expected to have about $30 million by the end of this budget year in September. A third is empty.

Another type of reserve account intended for unexpected repairs maintains between $50 million and $60 million each year — a fraction of the repair bill that county engineers estimate could run into the billions.

Adding to the problem, county commissioners and mayors have repeatedly resisted raising what rank as some of the lowest water and sewer fees in the state — though they did boost it 4.7 percent last year. The average homeowner pays about $135 quarterly, according to the county.

Miami-Dade certainly isn’t alone in struggling to mend its leaky and aging sewage system. Most major cities in the United States have similar problems. The EPA estimates there are 240,000 water and sewer main breaks across the country each year, and puts the price tag at hundreds of billions of dollars.

In Broward County, for instance, state regulators say sewer failures have sometimes drawn scrutiny but not a similar sweeping state-federal enforcement case. Waste there is handled by 28 different utilities with much smaller and generally newer systems. Miami-Dade’s system is the largest, and among the oldest, in the state with huge pipelines carrying large volumes over long distances.

Alan Garcia, director of Broward’s wastewater and water services, said less than 3 percent of the county’s 7 million feet of pipes is older than 50 years. About 40 percent of the county’s breaks are construction related, he said.

“We do an aggressive job of monitoring our pipes,’’ he said.

Jennifer Diaz, a Florida DEP spokeswoman, said Miami-Dade hasn’t tried to cover up its problems, acknowledging in an April 2011 “self assessment’’ sent to the EPA that numerous breaks were putting the county in violation of the U.S. Clean Water Act.

The DEP opened its own enforcement case against Miami-Dade in 2009. But the following year, after consulting with the EPA and Miami-Dade, all the parties agreed to draw up a joint state-federal consent decree that acknowledges “improper’’ management and maintenance practices.

In a written statement, Diaz said the spills “are mitigated by Miami-Dade to the greatest extent possible.’’

Still, the potential failure of some key pipelines could have disastrous consequences. Earlier this year a consultant warned that the sewer main running under Government Cut to Virginia Key was so brittle it could rupture at any time. It was constructed from pipe made by a now-defunct company named Interpace, whose notoriously defective products have been linked to a number of major failures.

Though county engineers maintain the pipeline remains safe for daily use, department director John Renfrow acknowledged an unexpected failure would be “catastrophic,” spewing tens of millions of gallons of raw sewage into Biscayne Bay.

His warning echoes one issued exactly two decades ago about potential sewer line breaks by a Miami-Dade grand jury appalled by environmental and other conditions in the Miami River.

“The Miami River and Biscayne Bay would experience the worst environmental catastrophes in modern history,’’ the 1991 report warned. “The detrimental impact of a spill of this type and the cleanup and mitigation costs are incalculable. If we are seriously concerned about the bay, we must address this known environmental hazard now.’’

Miami Herald staff writer Carli Teproff contributed to this report.

Posted on Sun, May. 13, 2012

By CURTIS MORGAN

Walter Michot / Miami Herald Staff

At Hillcrest Golf & Country Club in Hollywood, the fairways and greens are irrigated with 'reclaimed' waste water.

South Florida has suffered through some dreary declines of late — home values, paychecks and the Miami Dolphins, for instance.

But in the case of the public thirst for one precious commodity — fresh water — the decline has actually turned into a major money-saving plus.

The 53 water utilities serving Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe counties pumped about 83 million fewer gallons a day in 2010 than they did in 2000 — despite a population that grew by some 600,000 over the decade — according to a new draft analysis produced by the South Florida Water Management District.

Do the math and it adds up to South Floridians using about 20 percent less water each day for drinking, bathing and sprinkling yards per person than they did a decade ago. That’s about 30 billion gallons over the course of a year, enough unused water to fill 45,900 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

It’s an unexpected but entirely welcome drop-off in public demand in a region that only a decade ago was worried about taps running dry in relentlessly sprawling suburbs.

“It’s not a surprise that it went down,’’ said Mark Elsner, administrator of water supply development for the water management district. “It’s a surprise it went down so much.’’

WHAT’S BEHIND IT

Though water consumption per person has been declining for decades, water managers point to a combination of factors that are accelerating the trend. They include newer water-efficient toilets and other fixtures, tougher restrictions on lawn irrigation and stepped utility rates designed to make customers pay a premium for excessive water use.

Water managers and state and local environmental regulators have pushed conservation programs and also demanded that utilities expand use of “reclaimed” wastewater — often by using it to irrigate parks and golf courses.

At Hillcrest Golf & Country Club in Hollywood, for instance, every drop from the sprinklers is recycled wastewater — cheaper and in totally unrestricted supply.

“We have a very good deal for water. We could use a million gallons or 10 gallons and we pay the same amount,’’ said Lewis Rissman, Hillcrest’s general manager. “The city of Hollywood doesn’t even know what to do with all their reclaimed water.’’

Clearly, South Florida’s economic downturn, housing market collapse and flattening population growth have contributed to the slaking thirst as well.

“There are a lot of things working together,’’ said Elsner, whose agency oversees the water supply for 16 counties stretching from south of Orlando to Key West. “What you’re seeing is a conservation ethic being developed. People are understanding the value of water.’’

What the decline in demand from public utilities does not mean is South Florida is in the clear when it comes to water shortages

South Florida depends on wildly varying annual rainfall to replenish its underground aquifers and Lake Okeechobee. Right now, for example, an unusually dry winter has left ground water levels lower than normal.

The district’s long-term planning analysis, revised every five years with new consumption and population figures, also covers only four counties in the region and doesn’t track similar trends for agriculture, which consumes an estimated 37 percent of the region’s water. It also doesn’t account for some critical future demands — such as the massive volumes of water needed to help restore the Everglades. The draft study predicts the four counties will still need to expand the public water supply by 18 percent by 2030.

But improved conservation has eased pressure on traditional public water supplies and utilities contemplating new, far more expensive water systems designed to reclaim wastewater and tap other new sources, from deep aquifers to sea water.

SCALING BACK

The drop-off has been significant enough that Miami-Dade’s Water and Sewer Department has been able to scale back projects considered essential only five years ago, saving the utility — and its customers — hundreds of millions of dollars.

In 2007, Miami-Dade, which had historically relied almost entirely on the cheap, clean Biscayne Aquifer, was forced to draw up a $1.6 billion expansion plan to serve a then-booming population. Under pressure from water managers, who warned that drawing more from the underground supply could hurt regional water supplies, the Everglades and Biscayne Bay, Miami-Dade designed projects to tap the deeper brackish Floridan aquifer or to treat wastewater.

Bertha Goldenberg, assistant director of the water and sewer department, said the county has since been able to cancel or defer a handful of projects, including one that would have piped highly treated wastewater back into the ground near Zoo Miami to increase ground water supplies.

“We basically saved $300 million by changing that,’’ she said.

Alan Garcia, director of Broward County’s water and wastewater services, said the decline has allowed the agency to push back a $46 million project to tap the Floridan until at least 2023 and explore other potentially cheaper options for the future, such as teaming up with other Broward and Palm Beach utilities in constructing a massive reservoir.

Garcia said county figures show per person usage falling sharply in some areas, down almost by half between 1990 and 2008 in one area that includes Lighthouse Point and parts of Pompano Beach.

“People have finally started to see they don’t need to water their lawns four or five days a week,’’ he said. “It’s expensive water and they don’t need to use it.’’

Miami-Dade’s Goldenberg also points to irrigation restrictions the district first imposed in 2006 during a severe drought as a major factor in the decline, with county usage dropping by 20 gallons a day per person over the following two years. In 2010, both Miami-Dade and Broward made twice-weekly lawn watering rules permanent.

Miami-Dade programs to offer rebates and exchanges for high-efficiency toilets and shower heads and to improve homeowner associations’ irrigation systems also combined to save nearly 8.5 million gallons a day last year, according to a water department report completed in April.

The district analysis shows that, based on 2010 figures, Miami-Dade remained the largest consumer of the public water supply, slurping some 347 million gallons a day. Broward trailed with 217 million gallons a day, followed by Palm Beach County with 207 million gallons and Monroe with 16 million gallons.

But Palm Beach County’s agricultural industry, dominated by sprawling sugar farms, made it the thirstiest county overall. Farms, which draw from their own wells and pumps, pushed Palm Beach’s total daily demands to over 600 million gallons. Miami-Dade’s combined farm and public total runs just over 400 million gallons a day, according to the report.

Measuring by usage per person, Palm Beach recorded the greatest decline between 2000 and 2010, at 28 percent, followed by Broward at 19 percent and Miami-Dade at 17 percent. Miami-Dade’s updated numbers, which include figures through 2011, show a 21 percent reduction since 2000.

THIRSTY MONROE

Officially, Monroe ranked far and away as the thirstiest county per person at 198 gallons per day in 2010 but water managers said that number was heavily skewed by tourists in the Florida Keys, who use much of the water but aren’t included in the calculations.

Lower population projections also have eased the pressure to expand water systems. The last time the district produced its analysis, in 2006, when South Florida was in the midst of a super-heated housing boom, water managers calculated the four counties would be using nearly 2.3 billion gallons of water a day by 2025 for everything from home faucets to farming.

That estimate is now down by some 400 million gallons — for 2030, five years later.

“I don’t think the question is are we going to run out of water but are we going to run out of less expensive water,’’ said Elsner, of the water management district. “What this does is extend the traditional fresh water sources further down the road.’’

Miami-Dade now believes it can cover much of its future demand through 2030 with a plant in Hialeah already under construction and expected to be completed later this year that will tap the Floridan and a second plant in South Miami that is being designed to use less expensive technology.

“We’re a lot better off than we were in 2005,’’ Goldenberg said. “Our demands were above our allocations so we were really in a crisis.’’

South Florida has suffered through some dreary declines of late — home values, paychecks and the Miami Dolphins, for instance.

But in the case of the public thirst for one precious commodity — fresh water — the decline has actually turned into a major money-saving plus.

The 53 utilities serving Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe counties pumped about 83 million gallons a day of water less in 2010 than they did in 2000 — despite a population that grew by some 600,000 over the decade — according to a new draft analysis produced by the South Florida Water Management District.

Do the math and it adds up to South Floridians using about 20 percent less water each day for drinking, bathing and sprinkling yards per person than they did a decade ago. That’s about 30 billion gallons over the course of a year, enough unused water to fill 45,900 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

It’s an unexpected but entirely welcome drop-off in public demand in a region that only a decade ago was worried about taps running dry in relentlessly sprawling suburbs.

“It’s not a surprise that it went down,’’ said Mark Elsner, administrator of water supply development for the water management district. “It’s a surprise it went down so much.’’

Though water consumption per person has been declining for decades, water managers point to a combination of factors that are accelerating the trend. They include newer water-efficient toilets and other fixtures, tougher restrictions on lawn irrigation and stepped utility rates designed to make customers pay a premium for excessive water use.

Water managers and state and local environmental regulators have pushed conservation programs and also demanded that utilities expand use of “reclaimed” waste water — often by using it to irrigate parks and golf courses.

At Hillcrest Golf & Country Club in Hollywood, for instance, every drop from the sprinklers is recycled wastewater — cheaper and in totally unrestricted supply.

“We have a very good deal for water. We could use a million gallons or 10 gallons and we pay the same amount,’’ said Lewis Rissman, Hillcrest’s general manager. “The city of Hollywood doesn’t even know what to do with all their reclaimed water.’’

Clearly, South Florida’s economic downturn, housing market collapse and flattening population growth have contributed to the slaking thirst as well.

“There are a lot of things working together,’’ said Elsner, whose agency oversees the water supply for 16 counties stretching from south of Orlando to Key West. “What you’re seeing is a conservation ethic being developed. People are understanding the value of water.’’

What the decline in demand from public utilities does not mean is South Florida is in the clear when it comes to water shortages

South Florida depends on wildly varying annual rainfall to replenish its underground aquifers and Lake Okeechobee. Right now, for example, an unusually dry winter has left ground water levels lower than normal.

The district’s long-term planning analysis, revised every five years with new consumption and population figures, also covers only four counties in the region and doesn’t track similar trends for agriculture, which consumes an estimated 37 percent of the region’s water. It also doesn’t account for some critical future demands — such as the massive volumes of water needed to help restore the Everglades. The draft study predicts the four counties will still need to expand the public water supply by 18 percent by 2030.

But improved conservation has eased pressure on traditional public water supplies and utilities contemplating new, far more expensive water systems designed to reclaim wastewater and tap other new sources, from deep aquifers to sea water.

The drop-off has been significant enough that Miami-Dade’s Water and Sewer Department has been able to scale back projects considered essential only five years ago, saving the utility — and its customers — hundreds of millions of dollars.

In 2007, Miami-Dade, which had historically relied almost entirely on the cheap, clean Biscayne Aquifer, was forced to draw up a $1.6 billion expansion plan to serve a then-booming population. Under pressure from water managers, who warned that drawing more from the underground supply could hurt regional water supplies, the Everglades and Biscayne Bay, Miami-Dade designed projects to tap the deeper brackish Floridan aquifer or to treat waste water.

Bertha Goldenberg, assistant director of the water and sewer department, said the county has since been able to cancel or defer a handful of projects, including one that would have piped highly treated waste water back into the ground near Zoo Miami to increase ground water supplies.

“We basically saved $300 million by changing that,’’ she said.

Alan Garcia, director of Broward County’s water and wastewater services, said the decline has allowed the agency to push back a $46 million project to tap the Floridan until at least 2023 and explore other potentially cheaper options for the future, such as teaming up with other Broward and Palm Beach utilities in constructing a massive reservoir.

Garcia said county figures show per person usage falling sharply in some areas, down almost by half between 1990 and 2008 in one area that includes Lighthouse Point and parts of Pompano Beach.

“People have finally started to see they don’t need to water their lawns four or five days a week,’’ he said. “It’s expensive water and they don’t need to use it.’’

Miami-Dade’s Goldenberg also points to irrigation restrictions the district first imposed in 2006 during a severe drought as a major factor in the decline, with county usage dropping by 20 gallons a day per person over the following two years. In 2010, both Miami-Dade and Broward made twice-weekly lawn watering rules permanent.

Miami-Dade programs to offer rebates and exchanges for high-efficiency toilets and shower heads and to improve homeowner associations’ irrigation systems also combined to save nearly 8.5 million gallons a day last year, according a water department report completed in April.

The district analysis shows that, based on 2010 figures, Miami-Dade remained the largest consumer of the public water supply, slurping some 347 million gallons a day. Broward trailed with 217 million gallons a day, followed by Palm Beach County with 207 million gallons and Monroe with 16 million gallons.

But Palm Beach County’s agricultural industry, dominated by sprawling sugar farms, made it the thirstiest county overall. Farms, which draw from their own wells and pumps, pushed Palm Beach’s total daily demands to over 600 million gallons. Miami-Dade’s combined farm and public total runs just over 400 million gallons a day, according to the report.

Measuring by usage per person, Palm Beach recorded the greatest decline between 2000 and 2010, at 28 percent, followed by Broward at 19 percent and Miami-Dade at 17 percent. Miami-Dade’s updated numbers, which include figures through 2011, show a 21 percent reduction since 2000.

Officially, Monroe ranked far and away as the thirstiest county per person at 198 gallons per day in 2010 but water managers said that number was heavily skewed by tourists in the Florida Keys, who use much of the water but aren’t included in the calculations.

Lower population projections also have eased the pressure to expand water systems. The last time the district produced its analysis, in 2006, when South Florida was in the midst of a super-heated housing boom, water managers calculated the four counties would be using nearly 2.3 billion gallons of water a day by 2025 for everything from home faucets to farming.

That estimate is now down by some 400 million gallons – for 2030, five years later.

“I don’t think the question is are we going to run out of water but are we going to run out of less expensive water,’’ said Elsner, of the water management district. “What this does is extend the traditional fresh water sources further down the road.’’

Miami-Dade now believes it can cover much of its future demand through 2030 with a plant in Hialeah already under construction and expected to be completed later this year that will tap the Floridan and a second plant in South Miami that is being resigned to use less expensive technology.

“We’re a lot better off than we were in 2005,’’ said Goldenberg. “Our demands were above our allocations so we were really in a crisis.’’

Posted on Mon, May. 07, 2012

Everglades scientists play risky game of tag with near-extinct predator

By SUSAN COCKING
scocking@MiamiHerald.com

Sean McNeil and Jordan Kahn / PressLaunch.US

Researchers from the University of Florida captured, tagged and released two sawfish in the 13-foot range near East Cape Sable in Everglades National Park as part of a larger recovery project for the endangered species.

The boat captain and the scientist wielded their lasso like seasoned cowboys instead of fishermen. A good thing, since their lives literally depended on it: roping an upset, 13-foot-long, prehistoric creature waving a double-toothed saw in the water is just as dangerous as grabbing a bull by the horns.

“There’s a swing,” Captain Jim Willcox warned as the saw slashed the air. “Careful, it’s pretty green.”

But Willcox and Yannis Papastamatiou, a University of Florida scientist, managed to secure the line around both the saw and the tail of their quarry: an endangered smalltooth sawfish, the rarest marine species in U.S. waters. Now the huge brown creature lay quietly alongside their skiff near East Cape Sable in Everglades National Park, enabling them to safely complete their research mission.

“He’s a good boy!” said UF research assistant Bethan Gillett, who had caught the giant fish on a rod and reel moments earlier.

The point of this hazardous maritime rodeo is for researchers from the Smalltooth Sawfish Recovery Team to learn as much as they can to help bring back one of the top predators in the marine ecosystem — nearly wiped out through its entire range over the past century.

“These guys started disappearing before we as biologists started figuring out they were going,” said George Burgess, who runs a sawfish database at the University of Florida’s Museum of Natural History in Gainesville.

Once common from New York south to Florida and west to Texas, these huge members of the ray family that can grow to 25 feet are rarely seen today, except for the waters of Everglades National Park and the Keys. Not a lot is known about their life history, but scientists say they may live 25 to 30 years, reaching sexual maturity after about 10 years. Females give birth to litters of 15 to 20 pups.

With its slow growth and late maturity, the smalltooth sawfish met its demise decades ago by becoming entangled in gill nets, being slaughtered by collectors of its bill, and squeezed by shrinkage of its shallow mangrove habitat. It was declared an endangered species in the United States in 2003. Its cousin, the endangered largetooth — formerly found in the Atlantic — now is functionally extinct in U.S. waters, according to Burgess.

Burgess says recovery of the smalltooth will take a very long time.

“Even with a total ban on death, it will take 100 years, and we’re 10 years into that process, so we’ve got 90 years to go,” he said.

Sawfish numbers are so beaten down that even scientific experts like Burgess and colleagues from the National Marine Fisheries Service and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission must obtain a federal permit to handle the species. Anyone else who molests or harasses them faces a possible $10,000 federal fine.

This year, Burgess had a permit to tag 11 sawfish, which he did over the past couple of months with help from Willcox — a veteran Islamorada light-tackle guide — and several UF colleagues. They deployed the final two sets of tags on April 27 near East Cape Sable on two males in the 13-foot range. Both swam forcefully away when the procedures were completed.

Papastamatiou drilled holes in the animals’ tough dorsal fins and fastened a cigar-shaped satellite pop-up tag, an acoustic transmitter tag and a small streamer tag with the research lab’s phone number. The satellite tag records water temperature, depth and light levels at short intervals, then pops off after five months, broadcasting the accumulated data to a satellite, which sends it to the scientists’ computers.

The acoustic tag beeps a signal to underwater listening stations that tell how many times the sawfish passes through the area. The three tags are intended to back each other up.

Willcox and the scientists have been catching and tagging sawfish in the park for about three years — not enough time to draw conclusions about the animals’ movements or growth rates. Their ability to continue the research is imperiled by money problems: Federal funds are running dry, so they’re seeking private donations.

“It’s going to be a long haul,” Burgess said. “We can’t grow weary of the fight. Hopefully, our children and grandchildren will have a shot at this down the line.”

One thing in the sawfish’s favor is its charisma — a giant, brown apex predator that slashes its prey, mostly fish and some crustaceans, with its deadly bill. A recent study by scientist Barbara Wueringer of the University of Queensland in Australia found that the animals have a “sixth sense” in their bills — a series of pores that can detect movements or electrical fields of hidden fish or crabs.

The sight of a sawfish is awe-inspiring, Willcox says.

“When people see that for the first time, they feel like they’ve gone back in time,” he said. “It’s not something you want to mess with casually. That bill can come up vertically and take your head off. For me, it’s like fishing in a tournament and getting a victory. It’s about as big a rush as you can get in fishing — or anything in life.”

These photographs were taken under the authority of NMFS Permit No. 13330.