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.’’
