If the state approves the $47 million plan, it means the aquifer would be depleted a little more slowly. But it also means people in the tri-county area could be drinking treated wastewater every time they turn on the tap.
The concept of recharging the aquifer with treated sewage isn't new, but the city's project is different, said Rick Nevulis, a water reuse coordinator with the South Florida Water Management District. Pembroke Pines will inject the water directly into the ground. West Palm Beach, Sunrise, Tindall Hammock, Pahokee, Wellington and Homestead pump their purified sewage into wetlands, lakes or fields, where it percolates into the aquifer over a period of months or years.
Those six utilities now pump a combined 6.5 million gallons of purified sewage into the water supply each day. Pembroke Pines' plan would double that.
This is a long time coming, Nevulis said. The rest of the state already pumps much of its sewage back into its water supplies, and South Florida is behind.
Only about 71 million gallons of the approximately 640 million gallons of sewage the tri-county area produces each day gets reused in any way, and almost all of that goes toward irrigation.
The plan does have an "ick" factor, admitted City Manager Charles Dodge. But he guarantees the water will be pure and drinkable.
"The water will be very, very well treated," he said. "It's not as if you would know it went through this process."
Pembroke Pines' 7 million gallons a day may go into the ground in the city, but there's no way of telling where it will come out, said Harold Wanless, professor and chair of geological sciences at the University of Miami.
"Aquifers flow," Wanless said. "It's difficult to tell where any particular water will move to. We don't have the large conduits inside the aquifer well mapped."
The plan is necessary to regain the city's water use permit from the South Florida Water Management District. The aquifer — a 4,000 square mile system of underground limestone caves filled with water — is running low and the district has ordered that utilities come up with additional sources of water.