Aqueduct Authority Pushes For More Water In Lieu Of Conservation

 
 
FKAA Florida City Aerial 2009

FKAA Florida City Aerial 2009

On May 24, a brief article appeared in the Citizen and created little notice. The story indicated that the Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority (FKAA) had commissioned a report from a private consulting firm that was designed to discover if the amount of water we consume has any impact on the Biscayne Aquifer, from which we get almost all our water.

It was no surprise to read that the conclusion was no. According to the piece in the Citizen,

“There is little or no correlation noted between groundwater levels and groundwater pumpage,” the report states. “[We plan to] Present findings of this study to the (South Florida Water Management District) to begin meaningful discussions on operations of the FKAA well field.”

Somehow this just didn’t add up. In essence the Aqueduct Authority is claiming that no matter how much water the Keys use, there will be no impact on the source. The results of this report will help FKAA make the case for a larger allocation from the South Florida Water Management District than the current 17 million gallons per day.

The report, created by the Ft. Lauderdale office of national consulting firm CDM Smith is quite technical with myriad charts and its findings summarized in highly technical language. Not feeling equipped to evaluate what seemed counterintuitive, The Blue Paper contacted the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) for their take on the report. Through a spokesperson SFWMD indicated that they would not comment because they hadn’t received the report from FKAA. We offered to send it, having obtained it from the engineering department at FKAA. No dice.

Continuing its effort to get an expert opinion, Key West The Newspaper [The Blue Paper] approached several experts in this very technical field. No one at the International Association for Environmental Hydrology would even respond to messages via telephone or email nor would the person who coordinated the report for CDM Smith. She never returned multiple phone calls.

Next we contacted the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). After hitting many barriers, we finally reached a hydrologist in South Florida who is quite familiar with our aquifer. This government official refused to even look at the report and wouldn’t comment on the merits of the claim that additional “pumpage” would not have any effect upon the aquifer.

This despite the fact that the USGS had issued a report that said, in part,

“Major fluctuations in the water table of the Biscayne aquifer result from variations in recharge and natural or artificial discharge, or both. Fluctuations may range from 2 to 8 feet per year, depending primarily on variations in precipitation and pumpage. Pumpage is generally greater during periods of less than normal precipitation, as farmers and homeowners apply irrigation water to maintain crop production and lawn growth.”

Drought and Heavy Rains Alternate

The levels in the aquifer vary, depending upon the amount of precipitation. In years such as this one, there is heavy rainfall. In drought years, such as between 1998 and 2002 when the entire state suffered from extreme drought, there would be far less available and the Aqueduct would have to rely upon its very expensive and very energy-intensive desalination plant, not a good option for the company or our environment.

An additional threat to our water supply is contamination from sea water intrusion and, according to the USGS, “…chemicals or pesticides applied to or spilled on the land, or fertilizer carried in surface runoff; landfills; septic tanks; sewage-plant treatment ponds; and wells used to dispose of storm runoff or industrial waste. Most disposal wells are completed in aquifers containing saltwater that underlie the Biscayne aquifer, but they are a potential source of contamination where they are improperly constructed. Numerous hazardous-waste sites have been identified in the area underlain by the Biscayne aquifer, and three unlined landfills are known to have contaminated the aquifer. Remedial action to prevent further contamination is underway at many of these sites.”

Could additional “pumpage” accelerate these effects?

A Qualified Analyst

The Blue Paper finally found a qualified person to talk about the CDM Smith report: Michael Sukop, associate professor in the Department of Earth and Environment at Florida International University. He has undertaken research on South Florida water in terms of sustainability and climate, and has conducted research focused on computational fluid dynamics in cavernous, fractured and porous media.

Sukop sees the report as just a pure statistical analysis and not very satisfying.

“It’s not mechanistic at all and is very short sighted in many respects.”

He went on to say that,

“There can be no magic here: additional pumpage has to be met by additional supply from somewhere. But where the water comes from is the challenging question and it is complicated even more by ‘elasticities’ of a sort that are due to temporal changes in recharge and storage, including movement of the fresh/saltwater interface.”

Here’s the translation of that technical analysis of a very technical report. If, for example, it happens to rain a lot more in one year, then things are going to look better than they would otherwise.

Sukop also worries about droughts.

“I’ve been really nervous about some of these droughts. I have a map on my door that shows the USGS data about what percentile the wells are at. We are delicately poised here. We have the most complicated aquifer system in the country. We have to keep it low for flood protection and we have to keep it high for salt water intrusion protection and it’s a nightmare.”

CDM Smith’s report states that ‘Neither water use, rainfall, nor sea level rise appear to have a significant influence on groundwater salinity.’”

Sea Level Rise An Even Greater Threat

And yet Sukop and others indicate that the greatest threat could be sea level rise. As the climate changes, saltwater pushes further into the mainland and is more of a threat to infiltrate the aquifer. Sukop agrees that this is a very real threat saying, “Effects of longer-term sea level rise may be unstoppable, but it might be moot if the Keys are significantly flooded anyway.” When there is no longer a significant land mass in the Keys, the amount of water pumped down the 140 miles of pipeline won’t matter.

While FKAA claims that it works on conservation all the time, there isn’t much evidence of it. They had a program to provide rebates on low flow toilets and, at one time, rebates for converting septic tanks to cisterns or installing new rainwater cisterns, but most people are completely unaware of these offers and the money has “dried up.” . It’s critical to not only greatly increase water efficiency in the Keys but also to reduce demand. Simple methods for doing so include low flow faucets and showers, dual flush toilets, highly efficient washing machines and dishwashers, water-sensors to eliminate irrigation during a rainstorm, rainwater harvesting and native planting. None are mandated.

Another method for promoting conservation is to have a tiered billing system with the first 1000 gallons at one rate, the second thousand at a higher rate, and so forth. Currently very high users pay a higher rate but the bar is set much too high.

Traditional utilities are not motivated to decrease consumption because their revenue is derived from consumption of the resource. The more resource is consumed, the more revenue. Instead, they attempt to increase supply. The connection with FKAA’s self-serving CDM report is that currently, if FKAA exceeds their SFWMD-limited consumption, the balance must be made up by the expensive Reverse Osmosis plant in Florida City.

Arguing that increasing pumpage from the Biscayne Aquifer should be allowed is asking for more “free” publicly owned water to sell. Even though the Aqueduct Authority is not a corporate utility as many in the United States are, it’s clear from its touting of what seems to be a very friendly report that they want to sell more water.

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COMMENT FROM:   Capt Ed Davidson, Chairman Emeritus, Fla Audubon Society

Having served on the Lower East Coast Water Supply Committee of the South Fla Water Management District for its formative 9 years as the chief environmental spokesperson, I can tell you what the FKAA-funded, near-sighted, and self-serving water study left out — which is that the Homestead well fields we get the Fla Keys water supply from are relatively isolated from the rest of the distribution system.  This means that in times of climatic draught, or overdrawn water usage, those supply fields cannot be readily replenished from the rest of the network of canals further north!
So how much water is siphoned out of the eastern border areas of Everglades National Park (which is where the Homestead well fields are) to flush down the toilets of ever more developers’ condos in the Fla Keys has always mattered a great deal — which is why the Water Management District issues “consumptive use permits” with restrictions and conditions, including water conservation measures.  That is also why the Fla Keys has often had lawn and car washing water use restrictions during draught periods — which obviously and factually confirms that on many occasions the Fla Keys has already overdrawn the limits of its share of the eastern Everglades water budget.
A wealth of such data and documented research (literally year’s worth of reading) on these issues pre-exists the erroneous “build all the condos and hotels you want, and leave the faucet running while you brush your teeth” water-use-doesn’t-matter study.  FKAA officials should have saved rate-payers all that consulting money, and read the available and profusely documented truth instead.