High-tech best hope for area's growing thirst

Southwest Florida water utilities plan to shell out at least $1.7 billion by 2025 to slake the thirst of a population that is expected to surge to 1.6 million residents.

Most of the water-supply projects will depend on a technology that scarcely was used a decade ago: turning brackish water into fresh water through reverse osmosis.

“There isn’t anything else out there,” said Paul Mattausch, director of Collier County’s public utility department.

The South Florida Water Management District made public earlier this month parts of an update to its Lower West Coast region’s water-supply plan. The area covers more than 5,100 square miles, including all of Lee, most of Collier and Hendry and portions of Glades, Charlotte and Monroe counties.

Since the plan last was revised in 2000, water managers have had to boost their population projections to account for the region’s blistering growth. They now expect 674,000 new residents to arrive by 2025, increasing the water demand by 153 million gallons a day.

That flood will hit hardest in Lee and Collier, thinning the already scant supply of traditional water sources such as rivers and underground aquifers, said Mike Coates, who wrote the water supply plan for the district.

“I think we’re nearing the safe yield on those traditional water supply sources,” he said.

Putting too much burden on a river or aquifer leads to environmental consequences.

The Caloosahatchee River provides millions of gallons of drinking water every day to central Lee County residents. During arid spring days, citrus growers and those who want to keep their lawns green year-round tend to draw more water from the river to compensate for the lack of rainfall.

The result: The river’s flow dropped below the minimum set by the water management district for three of the past four years. The standard is aimed at keeping the right balance of salinity for the crabs, fish and sea grass in the Caloosahatchee estuary.

In booming Cape Coral, residents have sunk so many private wells into the Mid-Hawthorn/Sandstone aquifer that many shallower wells are drying up when there isn’t enough rain. Since April 2001, the water level has plummeted from about 16 feet below sea level to 65 feet below sea level, at one location.

At that rate, the aquifer beneath Cape Coral may reach its “maximum developable limit” in three years, according to the water supply report. If that happens, water managers could decide to reject requests for new wells, Coates said.

In response, Cape Coral’s public utility department is looking to triple its reverse osmosis capacity to 50.4 million gallons a day and triple its reclaimed water capacity — for irrigation — to 83.3 million gallons a day.

Coates said he asked water utilities to turn in which projects they plan to undertake by 2025 and to give a cost estimate. Not all of them responded, but those that did indicated the region could spend $1.7 billion in water-supply projects over the next two decades.

The biggest spender will be Cape Coral at $778 million. Next is Collier County’s public utility department at $580 million.

The Collier estimate doesn’t include six traditional water-supply projects that would provide nearly 10 million gallons of water a day. Water managers are making it tougher to get permits for new wells, Mattausch said.

The county is planning to build two reverse-osmosis plants in addition to the two it already has. One will be near the Orangetree subdivision off Immokalee Road, and the other might be constructed on Manatee Road in East Naples, Mattausch said.

While Southwest Florida likely won’t run out of potable water anytime soon, cheap water is going the way of the dinosaurs that once drank it for free.

It costs $1.26 to treat 1,000 gallons of fresh groundwater. The same amount of reverse osmosis-treated water costs $2.35. And seawater, which the report identifies as a “potential alternative supply,” runs anywhere from $2.49 to $8.77.

“You take advantage of the water that is cheap to produce. But when you begin to see a lot of growth and see additional pressures on resources, you look at other alternatives,” said Fred Partin, general manager of Bonita Springs Utilities, which opened a $41 million reverse-osmosis plant in April 2004, its first.

BSU’s long-range goals call for doubling the East Terry Street facility’s capacity by 2015.

The South Florida Water Management District is scheduled to release a preliminary study this fall that examines the prospect of building desalination facilities next to power plants in South Florida.

The two industries could form a symbiotic relationship, Coates said.

Power plants could use seawater to cool their equipment and then deliver the heated water to the water plant. Hot water passes more easily through the membranes that are used to filter water.

The water management district hasn’t selected any power plants yet to test the method, Coates said. Southwest Florida’s lone power-generating facility is the Florida Power & Light plant on the Caloosahatchee River.

Today, agriculture is the biggest consumer of water in Southwest Florida, gulping 405 million gallons of it a day. But household faucets are expected to close that gap by 2025, with a 74 percent jump in demand compared with agriculture’s mere 4 percent rise.

Water supply workshop

What: The South Florida Water Management District is seeking comments on the final draft of the Lower West Coast water-supply plan, its first update since 2000.

Where: Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, 300 Tower Road, Naples

When: 9:30 a.m. Monday