Below is a stereotypical article about "water management."
Note how the writer never uses the words "market" "pricing" "private property"
"ownership" "economics" nor makes any reference to how goods and services
are normally provided in a free society, through competitive pricing among
owners and producers. The writer seems ignorant
of these concepts, that such concepts would never enter his head in regard
to water issues, and that the "solution" to the so-called "water problem"
is not known, beyond the media's hackneyed solution to every "problem," and
that is "the government needs to do something."
Jul 30, 2003
Who should get a permit to pump more water? The people filling a new subdivision or a farmer who grows crops?
It hasn't come to that for the Southwest Florida Water Management District, though governing board members have discussed what will happen when competing requests for permits surface.
They don't have an answer.
But seeing this on the horizon, the state Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services spent the past two years crafting an agricultural water policy.
The result is part concrete recommendations, mostly about how agricultural water-use permits are issued, and part public relations.
``We need to help people to understand how important agriculture is to Florida,'' said Chuck Aller, director of water policy for the Agriculture Department.
If you count pastureland and tree farms, more than half - 52 percent - of Florida's 35 million acres is used for agriculture.
``We're still very much an agricultural state, even though demographically we've become an urban state,'' Aller said.
Farming of all types accounts for 48 percent of the water pumped from aquifers each year, making it the largest single water user. Water for people accounts for 30 percent.
Agriculture certainly is important in Hillsborough County, where strawberry farmers often use large amounts of water in the winter when protecting their sensitive crops from freezing temperatures.
A Watery Shield
To guard against freezes, strawberry growers coat their crops with water. The formation of ice creates a layer that protects the plants.
And that use of water sometimes has led to problems. During a January 2001 freeze, when local strawberry growers were sucking millions of gallons of water from the aquifer, a handful of homeowners near strawberry farms complained that their wells went dry.
Ultimately, the needs of both groups will either rise or stay about the same, with farming projected to use 47 percent of the water withdrawn by 2020 and the public's share rising to 33 percent.
``Agriculture would be the loser if there was a conflict between agriculture and urban water users,'' Aller said.
No one knows when the day will come when agencies will have to choose between farming and development, said Mary Ann Gosa, assistant director of government affairs for the Florida Farm Bureau Federation.
``It's a concern of ours,'' she said. ``It's a very real issue. It's coming. God knows when. How do they make that decision of what's the highest and best use?''
Farmers want to head off when water districts have to flip that coin.
``There is a feeling in a state developing the way Florida is, there's a bit of apprehension,'' Aller said. ``We don't need to get in a confrontational situation.''
That conflict may not come if all water users find sources other than wells, the traditional supply, said Dave Moore, executive director of the Southwest Florida Water Management District.
The Logic Of Storage
Moore said water suppliers, mainly public utilities, are looking more at tapping excess water from rivers and storing it in reservoirs such as the 15-billion-gallon one being built in southeast Hillsborough County.
Storing water during rainy seasons could ease the strain on water from the ground, Moore said.
``I think that's what's going to carry us through the next 35 years,'' he said.
Another way to avoid the conflict is for agriculture to continue finding ways to use less water.
The citrus industry, for example, has gone from massive overhead sprinklers to more efficient micro-irrigation.
Farmers now capture excess water that runs off from irrigation to use again.
``There's a number of benefits to us to be as efficient as possible with water use,'' Gosa said.
The Agriculture Department would also like to see water districts evaluate estimates of farming needs more often than the current practice of every five years to give farmers more flexibility in permits because of weather conditions or changing crops.
Strawberry farmer Porter Hare of Dover said that if the water management district has to decide between farming and development, all sides should be treated equally.
But without enough water for farms, the pace of 150,000 acres a year that is converted from farming to development could increase.
``When people go to the store and there's nothing on the shelf, you'll say, `Where did the farmers go?' By then it's too late,'' Hare said.
``But then there will probably always be somebody to grow something.''
Reporter Andrew Meadows contributed to this report. Reporter Neil Johnson can be reached at (352) 544-5214.
This story can be found at: http://tampatrib.com/businessnews/MGA4OVDRQID.html