Central Florida's thirst threatens the St Johns River

[Metro Jacksonville]

Central Florida's thirst threatens the St Johns River



Central Florida's unmanaged growth is now threatening the health of the St Johns River in North Florida.

Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/content/view/641

[raheem942]

i say we lock it up and let them dehighdrate before we end up like atlanta

[reardon]

So what does the Riverkeeper suggest Central Florida do to provide its need for water?  Moving vans to Georgia?  Trade coal for water via desal?  I don't mean to be cynical but just think the position should be carried to a logical conclusion - what is the alternative.  Conservation is a given but even with that there will be a need to id another supply source eventually.

[02roadking]

Delaney touts ocean water to help slake Orlando's thirst


As head of a St. Johns River group, he doubts a plan to send fresh water.




By DAVID HUNT, The Times-Union


Former Jacksonville Mayor John Delaney said he'd rather see Central Florida quench a growing thirst with the ocean than the St. Johns River.     

Delaney, now president of the University of North Florida, heads the St. Johns River Alliance, a nonprofit river preservation group formed several years ago.

He was questioning a plan that could draw 262 million gallons a day from the river to fill the Orlando region's drinking water needs. The river preservation group heard a presentation Friday from the St. Johns River Water Management District's executive director, Kirby Green.

District research suggests groundwater alone will not be able to supply Central Florida past 2013 without threatening the river's aquatic and plant life. Plans are to pump water from the St. Johns River and a tributary, the Ocklawaha.

Green said building a desalinization plant to convert ocean water into drinking water would cost roughly $250 million and take seven years. In addition, the cost of treating seawater would be roughly double that of treating river water.

Delaney, who said he was worried about what could happen during a drought, was critical of the financial concern.

"It's sort of like a plasma TV. You could wait forever for the price to get cheaper," he said. "I don't see why we don't let the price be what the price is and not risk screwing up the river."

Green said Florida has aggressive planning and water management procedures to help prevent growth from hurting the environment.

"If we had this planning process, why wouldn't we have [a seawater treatment plan] ready to go?" asked Delaney.

Green said it's without doubt that some measure of water will be taken from the river, even if not 262 million gallons daily. He said the district will spend the next 18 to 24 months researching how to do so without hurting the river.

"We're going to encourage debate. We're going to encourage people to challenge our science," he said. "The bottom line is Central Florida needs to be able to turn the tap on some source other than groundwater by 2013."

Delaney said the River Alliance would hold off taking a position on the water withdrawal plan until hearing a presentation from St. Johns Riverkeeper Neil Armingeon scheduled next month.

david.hunt@jacksonville.com

[thelakelander]

Does Central Florida oppose building a desalinization plant?  Other than high start up costs ($250 million), what are the cons to using ocean water?

[Lunican]

It's not just start up costs that are high, the entire desalinization process is expensive.

[Ocklawaha]

Can you spot the RAT in this photo?

Before Mickey, we called it the St. Johns River!

Ocklawaha

[riverkeepered]

Desalinization is definitely one of the options that must remain on the table, but it is a far from perfect solution.  Desal is very expensive, results in a concentrate by-product that must be disposed of, and requires a lot of energy to operate.

Water conservation measures must be our first priority and the ability and willingness to say "no".  We have the technology and the know-how to dramatically reduce water consumption.  We just don't currently have the will.  We also must be willing to say no to future developments if the water is not available or require stringent water conservation measures and sustainable building practices to be implemented as conditions for approval.  We can't continue to approve Consumptive Use Permits (CUPs) that provide millions of gallons of water a day for businesses at little cost and minimal requirements for the efficient use of that water. 

For us to go from mismanaging one of the largest freshwater sources of water on this planet (the Floridan Aquifer) to siphoning water from our rivers is simply irresponsible and shortsighted and skips over a crucial step in the process.  Any prudent politician or decision-maker must first take a look at how we got ourselves in this situation and address the root causes before ever turning to the St. Johns or even desal to solve our problems.  For decades, we have allowed poor planning and the inefficient use of our resources, and that must change, especially considering that we currently have a sick St. Johns River and our population is expected to increase dramatically in the next 50 years. 

There is a chance that water conservation, sustainable building practices, prudent planning, and wastewater reuse may not solve all of our future water needs, but we sure need to give it our best effort before we roll the dice with some our most precious natural assets, like the St. Johns River.

[Jason]

Well said Riverkeepered. 

Just curious, what is the byproduct you speak of with the desal process?  Salt?  Other minerals?

[Lunican]

Orlando is not on an ocean. That might be a problem

[riverkeepered]

Here is an excerpt from an article on the Mechanical Engineering Magazine website that talks about the concentrate and the energy issues related to desalinization:

The end result is clean, drinkable water that typically will undergo post-treatment before being stored or delivered. What's left over is a brine that's roughly twice as salty as the original feedwater. This brine, known as concentrate, is typically discharged back into the ocean, in the case of seawater, or buried in a deepwater well, in the case of brackish water. Other options for inland concentrate disposal include the use of evaporation pools and landfills.

The need for a steady source of energy and a coastal location makes proper siting a critical component to the success of a seawater desalination plant.

"The most cost-effective location for a seawater desalination plant is right on the coast, next to a power plant," said Hal Furman, executive director of the U.S. Desalination Coalition. According to Furman, coastal desalination facilities are easier to permit when co-located with power plants, especially in areas such as California, where coastal facility development is viewed as "a blight on the environment."

Building desalination facilities next to coastal power plants offers a few other cost-saving advantages, including the ability of energy-hungry desalination facilities to buy a power plant's excess energy capacity at a bargain price "inside the fence," Furman said.

"The economies of scale offered by colocating a seawater desalination facility with a coastal power plant can't be underestimated," said Steve Duranceau, vice president and national director of water quality and treatment in the Orlando, Fla., office of Boyle Engineering, which consults on desalination technology worldwide. "Half of the operating budget of a desalination facility is spent on power."

[Ocklawaha]

Oviedo and Geneva, East of Orlando already are pumping SALT WATER in the local wells. I really think Orlando needs to deal with it and STOP issue of new build permits. Endless and mindless growth has got them into this but now they want "Our River" to get them out??? Hey Mickey, I don't use the name "OCKLAWAHA" without some fight in that history...

As for the purification plants, I've seen the Tampa facility that uses the reverse osmosis system, but I wonder if a steam-still would work faster and without the high costs. Salt water boiled, produces clean steam which can be collected on a sloped mirror or clean stainless surface, when it condenses and cools, the water will run down the surface into a collection basin and be pure as snow. Works for me!

Ocklawaha

[Ocklawaha]

Very Interesting Find! We better put the stop to these thieves... they can belly up to the bar and pay for desalinization of Sea Water!




NOW THEY HAVE REALLY PISSED ME OFF!! @!#@$#%^#@^!$$!@# They plan to destroy the OCKLAWAHA too!

@$%@%#!$%&$($)_)&*&Y^($@#@!

First we are going to bury it with bombs, bulldozers canal's and dams, now we're just going to pump it dry for a RAT!

*$&#&@^$*(##&@#&^#%R%!@%@##!

OCKLAWAHA