Florida's 1970s Choice - Growth Over Water - Means The Bill Is Just Now Coming Due

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Today, amid yet another of Florida's periodic droughts, the state's leaders say people must change their ways. They say the era of cheap water is ending. They've said it all before. "The problem has been the incredible power of the development lobby," said Nat Reed, a Hobe Sound environmentalist who served 12 years on the board of the South Florida Water Management District. "We had the responsibility of saying no to the water, but it didn't happen. And it still doesn't happen."

Severe droughts have hit South Florida as far back as the 1940s, when Everglades wildfires blanketed coastal cities with smoke for months. A few droughts later, then-Gov. Reubin Askew organized a water summit in 1971 to find solutions. The legislature enacted sweeping changes to the state's water laws the following year. But the problem remains unsolved.

Now millions of Floridians from Miami and Naples to Jacksonville live under watering restrictions. Statewide, residents face at least a $9 billion tab in the coming decades to capture, cleanse and store the water that future Floridians will need. In South Florida, expanding the water supply is a major goal of the multi-decade $10.9 billion Everglades restoration. But even with that project's promised hundreds of billions of gallons, the region faces the prospect of permanent limits on water use.

All this in a state that gets an average of 53 inches of rain a year - 15 inches more than Seattle - plus enough water underground to supply every family on Earth with an Olympic-sized pool.

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http://www.palmbeachpost.com/state/content/state/epaper/2007/07/23/m1a_WATER_0723.html

That's right on! I live in Orlando and am the immediate-past chairman of the Sierra Club of Central Florida. When I learned of local plans to supplement aquifer water with withdrawals from the St. Johns River, I added a reverse osmosis filter to my kitchen sink. When I am at home, I never drink straight from the tap.

Perhaps the saddest parallel to this piece is the fact that Florida Hometown Democracy and the How Shall We Grow? effort face the same uphill battles because of this handful of power brokers who prefer paving to conservation of any kind.