Full Description

The one-in-one-hundred year drought event of 2000/2001 in Florida created enormouschallenges for utilities in southwest Florida that rely on surface water as their primarysource of supply. The protracted drought of 2007 was even more severe and has focusedattention on a need for creative water management practices. The Southwest Florida Water Management District (SWFWMD) designated 5,100square miles in eight counties within its jurisdiction as the Southern Water Use CautionArea. This designation caused the water management rules to be modified with veryrestrictive water use permitting criteria. One long term goal is to reduce the region'sdependency on groundwater and halt saltwater intrusion along the coast. Conjunctive use or the "right source at the right time" was born out of the need forincreased resource management and supply reliability. Specifically, utilities relyingsolely on surface water as the primary source are developing groundwater sources tosupplement supply and utilities relying on the traditional groundwater are evaluating thefeasibility of developing alternative sources such as surface water sources or expansion ofreclaimed water to reduce dependence upon groundwater use. Groundwater sources under the concept of conjunctive use are not meant to meet 100%of the daily demand and vice-versa with surface water, rather each source is developed asa supplemental source to improve the reliability of a utility during drought periods. Useof diverse sources improves the reliability of a utility's ability to meet demands undervarying hydrologic conditions.This paper examines how one regional utility adopted a conjunctive water use approachto meet the regional demands under challenging hydrologic and regulatory conditionsthrough the use of a groundwater and an additional surface water source from two localutilities in the area. Includes tables, figures.

Product Details

Edition: Vol. - No. Published: 11/01/2008 Number of Pages: 38File Size: 1 file , 4.4 MB