Florida Matters; 11; Drought

I. Major funding for Florida matters comes from the mosaic company a leading producer of fertilizer made from phosphate and natural resource found in Florida. America's farmers depend on Florida phosphate for their crop nutrition needs. Mosaic helping America grow. We play in it clean with it cook with it admire it and depend on it for survival. We're talking about water and the delicate relationship our state has with this natural resource. Welcome to Florida matters. I'm Irene mayor where surrounded by water and

Florida even our bodies are about 70 percent water. While it's essential to our lives many of us take it for granted but not in times of drought. We've experienced droughts in Florida before but the current drought has lasted three years and the U.S. Geological Survey reports record low water levels. One important development to lessen our dependence on the state's Aqua for has been the building of a desalination plant in Apollo Beach awaiting use the water that surrounds our state by removing the salt. Joshua steward shows us why Florida still might have a way to go before desalination becomes a dependable option. When the southwest Florida Water Management District enacted its strictest water use limits ever on the Tampa Bay area the three year drought was blamed but the district known as swift mud also cited low water levels in the Hillsborough an elephant Rivers an empty reservoir in Tampa Bay's desalination plant which wasn't producing at its full capacity. Tampa Bay Water officials admit the plant hasn't been at peak production

but they say by this weekend the diesel plant will be pumping out its full 25 million gallons per day for about two months ago. The transformer on number three quit working and blew up. As you say and that's not a part that you can just run out and get anywhere. It's a specialized part and we had to have made Cardin says that's been coupled with cooler water temperatures which reduces the amount of fresh water that can be squeezed out of seawater from the bank. We are running at five trains should be producing over 21 million gallons we were producing at 16 to 17 million gallons because of the temperature of the water. Usually the diesel plant gets warmer water coming out of Tampa electrics big band power plant next door. But maintenance on one of the water tunnels meant the water wasn't being warmed by condenser. A quick primer on how the desalination plant works once it gets to the plant the water goes through three stages in about an hour. The first is called pretreatment and it involves a series of filters to remove large and microscopic particles. This is the first stage of what I talk about free treatment. We're trying to get the water

clean before it goes on the membranes of everything but salt and water. Basically it water's coming in across the water from the bay. We're going to add some chemicals the chemicals make particles in the water clump together and sink to the bottom. Then the water flows through special sand filters. It looks good enough to drink but it is very salty let me tell you. You can't see with the naked eye it looks very clear but it still has a lot of things that need to be removed before we still go to the reverse osmosis. Here's where we're at now the last part of the pretreatment is called diatomaceous or after the water leaves the sand filters it comes here for the last filtering before it goes onto the reverse osmosis membrane. This is where the water becomes drink of all all the salt and remaining impurities are removed by membranes close tightly in these tubes. Then the water moves to post treatment. Once the water leaves these membranes we have stripped of everything and it is in a spirit state. Water will go try to find these chemicals to get back in balance. So if we don't add

these chemicals it will go take them wherever it can find them and generally that's the pipes. So what we'll end up having is corroded plugged pipes within less than a year. The day we visited the plant was producing 18 million gallons still Carden says. Even at full capacity and with warm water the fresh water coming out of the diesel plant isn't going to satisfy the area's thirst running at full capacity is not going to save the drought conditions we're in. That's that's the reality of it it's not plants not big enough or whatever was intended to be the savior to to having these kind of droughts it's not it's not built for that. But people I think you know think gosh we spent all these millions of dollars on this plant. Did we make the right investment. I don't think it was ever envisioned to work. The tie is over in these conditions a three year drought so what I'm saying to you we're going to you know Maxon capacity 25 million gallons a day. We're not we're not to turn the tide of the conditions we're in right now. Another thing is you know we

budget at the plant not to run it 25 and that's another misconception is to turn it on we're going to run it 365 25 MGD every day. That was never the vision. Every drop of water that doesn't come out of the ground is especially important right now overpumping the areas wells can cause environmental damage. So Tampa Bay Water is pumping permit from Swift mud only allows a 12 month average of 90 million gallons per day. Well we're over the 900 for the 12 month running average right now and our goal is to get back under as quickly as possible. Tampa's desalination plant has had its problems after several years of work to get the purification process working correctly. It's only been operating for about a year. He was held up as an example when it was first played and people were looking at it to see you know whether plants will really work with the community because we were we were deploying not

before. For desalination and operational stability that they were originally trying to harden calls the plant in advance scout for the whole desalination industry and he's had lots of visits by officials from other parts of the country. Most of them came down with the attitude they wanted to see around the way they needed to get one of these when they walked in here they would pick up one of these diesel plants and solve all their issues. And when they left here they understood it was a piece of the puzzle not not the one savior that that's the perception you need to use the other water sources and rotate them in and work them as a as a plant together. Davis says it's important for the desalination industry that the plant in Tampa function successfully in the long term. I have a feeling that there was a little disappointment that it took so long to get things operating proper good steps good nature.

But first in the car. For Florida matters. I'm Joshua Stewart. Maybe. You can take your own tour of the desalination plant. Find out how it ws f dot o r g slash Florida matters agriculture is one of the most profitable industries in our state. We depend on it to keep our economy moving however sluggish during these tough times. But how do you grow without a farmer's most valuable commodity. Water food growers in the area are turning to alternative approaches to maintain their crops and they're reaping the benefits. Many Florida farmers are determined to think inside the box these days. The pots are stacked up on top of each other. We can grow in this system in one acre would take eight to 10 acres in the ground to grow. And a fraction of the amount of water. You'd be surprised how much when you can't farm it. But with their bark like a farm any and all of the concrete sand I think Rohan and Gondor

Lamma put it you know like on tour. There are many aspects that I can can do with that money. Farmer Blake was never head into the earth box a container that allows him to grow produce in a concentrated area using much less water than conventional methods. Believe it or not I guess the most inspiration I had was a church we have our churches chevaliers that hang down and I daydream a George preacher would preach and I looked up at that chevalier and he was around chandelier and have different design then I used the word is like a plot of the made in that chandelier good to fertilise over here well put of borscht or other saw here what would happen. So I spent a lot of time in church thinking about Earth Mark Believe it or not I found out a very a little research you did done on a container. How many cubic feet of salt you have to have a debate about how much water do you have to have. What would it cost and was it economically feasible to do it. And I found out when I use it is box on land I could Varma anyway and off I.

Reduced to the price of what I would have to pay for a piece of land to farm while listen and still likes to play into their heads. You gotta play on top of the dirt or go for a loan you will be under the dirt. Chester Bullock owner of hydro taste farms prefers to go with H2O. We consider soil a four letter word. We've been building US farm for about 8 years now. And we started with about 15000 strawberry plants and we are now at about 250000. Every time water gets to be an issue we see more and more hydroponics becoming more into the play of the food chain. The word hydroponic comes from the Greek words hydro meaning water and Ponto meaning labor. It's a method of growing plants using mineral nutrient solutions without soil well in hydroponics what happens is because of the type of media you use your media is retaining the nutrient and the water that you need to feed these plants and be able to take through the root system whereas in traditional gardening in the ground you're your wedding the ground you're hoping that the ground will hold that

water and the plants can pull from that. This way we're giving them the exact ph they want we're given the exact nutrient they want and we're trying to give them the exact conditions they want utilizes so much less of our natural resources maybe water and fertilizers and that sort of thing. The humans got their inspiration after seeing Hydra taste farms model and are happy with the results. What makes us more conscious of what we're doing. Frankly we're not. We don't feel that we're adversely affected by the drought. And I think we we thought well enough in advance this is the type of system that I think more farmers need to consider and look forward to in order to continue to conserve the water that that is becoming less and less abundant for us. So I believe that we've thought that out very well in advance and so now we are still able to utilize a very small amount of water and still come up with a very delicious. Edible nutritious. Product. That.

That grown another way would be would cost more in terms of natural resources. The Sustainability is being able to utilize land without using it up without depleting the natural resources. And I think it's very clear just by looking I mean utilizing much less land much less water. Yes your book agrees. 10 heads of broccoli in 14 square inches that traditionally would take you about seven feet. So there's a lot of space saving a lot of space saving traditionally would take you 70 80 gallons of water. It's going to take us about seven quarts. Behind those you see those two crops a year eight years you're going to never change a dirty hit never taken a fertilizer out and I used to be that. Using alternative methods for farming may become more than just food for thought. Many

area farmers. Agricultural general's going to be in trouble we're in real trouble actually because we don't have enough grain and we don't have enough water. I think eventually that most farming will be hydroponic true we have large commercial farming now and a lot of people don't think about how I would go away. I have to disagree I think you're going to see large hydroponic farming for Florida matters. I'm Kirsten Cooper. We'll have information on our website for ways you can start an earth box right in your own home. Go to WUSA slash Florida matters. New water restrictions are in place across the bay area and many residents want to find ways to work within those restrictions and still enjoy their yards. I met with a local gardening expert to show how landscaping in the sunshine state doesn't have to make you sweat. Welcome to the discovery garden at the Hillsborough County Extension Service in Mango. I'm with Marina de Avro who's going to give us a tour around this beautiful place. These are all Florida

plants and I bet they're drought tolerant most of them definitely are just gorgeous we could start with the one just to your right nice and firm like. This is a firecracker plant and it's a wonderful plant. The landscape you can see they have blooms both in red and in white and they have this kind of weeping growth and they're very drought tolerant. They'll attract wildlife but they'll also attract hummingbirds. Because it's not your flowers and you say that they're OK in full sun. Yes they will do just fine in full sun. If we get a hard freeze they may dive back a little bit but they'll come right back in the spring. Now one thing that I didn't know you have to train your lawn or your landscape. It's sort of it's water needs. What does that mean. Well every plant has different water needs whether it's a lawn like a St. Augustine which probably requires a little bit more water than some other plants. And down to you're really drought tolerant succulents and cacti and whatnot that don't need that much water at all. But in general if you have most plants that have similar water requirements you can train them by the way you

water them how much water you give them how often you water them to only need certain. Water at certain times and you can train them to be more drought tolerant so when we do go into periods like we are right now where we're only on one day a week restrictions unlike in the city of Tampa you can only handle water that they will make it through the next few months until the rainy season comes. Tell me a little bit about this ground cover. This is a wonderful cover it's called dwarf Asiatic Jasmine and there's different kinds of variegated kinds and then there's a solid color. But it's a wonderful alternative to areas where you have turf that may not be doing so good if you have shade or if you have really hot sun and no irrigation. This will tolerate both conditions and it's very drought tolerant once it gets established. What are these pretty yellow plants along the edges you say they're real drought prone. They are this is a Beech sunflower it's a wonderful ground cover and then mixed in with that we have a mimosa which people know is the sensitive plant and they close up. I couldn't resist. It does and so wonderful. Both of them are wonderful ground covers they'll do well like at the edge of this pond or even in full

sun. Very very drought tolerant. Now this is an interesting irrigation system. Tell me a little bit about this. OK well this is one form of low volume irrigation. And this is drip tubing so you'll hear drip irrigation. This is what it is. The tubing comes from the factory with emitters already in place and about every 12 inches apart there's a hole and each emitter is pressure regulated so whereas the old soaker hoses you only get so much water coming out maybe 10 15 feet. This one no matter how far out up to 350 feet you have the tubing you'll get the same amount of water coming out of every emitter to every plant. And it just slowly drips out of the hole and puts the water right their roots where they need it. Does that go on for hours and hours how does that work. It can but you can you can either manually control it like you would a system or you can buy a little battery operated timer for 30 40 dollars and set it so that it will come on in and shut off after a few. What's the importance of mulch in all of this. Mulch is really really critical to any Florida landscape because you have to think of it like insulation in the walls of your home if you don't have insulation and it's really

hot when it's hot it gets really cold when it's cold. And so mulch helps to insulate the soil and keep the roots cool when it's hot and keep them warm when it's cold. Likewise it holds in moisture. And so if you keep three to four inches of mulch organic mulch around your plants at all times you'll hold a moisture when you water so you don't have to water as often. And if you have sloped areas where you might get runoff you don't get as much rotation if you have the mulch as well. And so it's just really really good in general to keep organic mulch around your plants. This is such a beautiful place I'm so glad to know that it's open to the public. People can come here and learn from it. Yes absolutely. We're an educational service that's a joint partnership between the University of Florida Hillsborough County government. And so we offer free workshops and educational resources to the public both in person they can come and speak to Mr. Garner volunteers or staff members or they can go on the web and get information there and then they can come and visit the guard. And it's great. Thank you so much. Thank You have wonderful discovery. You can learn more about this beautiful discovery garden and some more tips from Marina. Just go to our Web site at WSF

dot o r g slash. Florida matters. And if you have a true Florida friendly garden send us a picture and we'll post it for others to see. Just go to w us f dot o r g slash. Florida matters our next guest is Cynthia Barnett a senior writer for Florida Trend magazine Florida state wide business magazine and the author of Mirage Florida and the vanishing water of the eastern U.S.. Thank you for joining us today Cynthia. Please begin by telling us a little bit more about your book as I understand it it is about the water crisis in the state of Florida what's the argument that you present. It's not that Florida doesn't have enough water. It's that we haven't used it wisely and we still don't. In the 19th century Floridians drained wetlands at every turn. That was the conventional wisdom. We thought it was OK to do that in the 20th century. We over pumped our ground water and again

we thought Florida had an endless supply of groundwater the conventional wisdom said that was OK. I think we should be asking ourselves what assumptions are we making today that will seem equally far fetched 50 or 100 years from now. What are some of the ways in which our viewers could help conserve more water I would imagine that it could begin on a grassroots level with all of us who are watching today. Well I think Tampa Bay without question has done the best job of any part of the state at conserving water your water use is much lower than our statewide average of one hundred fifty eight gallons per person per day. We've all done a lot to conserve water. I think some of it has to come from a level of statewide leadership when it comes to energy. For example we've seen Governor Crist say that

bold emissions goals to reduce our CO2 emissions that's just the type of thing we could be doing with water supply for example setting per capita use goals for this day. We haven't seen the sort of leadership on water that we've seen on some of the other environmental issues of the past few years. Well thank you very much for joining us today Cynthia will have a link to Cynthia's book posted on our website. Go to w us dot o r g slash Florida matters. Now switching gears to a lighter note Larry Ellison is here with our next Florida story. I hear that you found some Bay Area residents who really take water conservation seriously. They do. You know I read half of Florida's drinking water ends up on our lawns. What a waste. We're going to need some of that water. And as we deal with drought and of course Florida's perpetual growing pains water conservation is the key.

Waste not want not. Water is the source of life. So in the wisdom of the American poet Hilary Wadsworth Longfellow. The best thing one could do would read the letter. If you happen to live in the water star of sunshine state maybe the next best thing you can do is hang on to some of that rain for clear and your area opening a valve to fill a plastic bucket with the free rainwater she has collected is music to her. In thirsty Florida yards and gardens rain barrels are showing up everywhere. It's hard to believe how much rain comes off here roof into your

gutters and. And into a barrel. The music filling this Dani home is about to get even sweeter. The barrel originally was a sky blue actually almost the color. Painter's tape unlike the other tin rain barrels in her yard. Artists clear and you arean is transforming barrel number 11 into a work of art. Why does she do it. They just kind of fit into the outside garden area and just look fun. Whether they are spray painted and decorated with geckos like Clara hands or simply left untouched. The Florida rain barrel is here to stay. People need to realize they can now. That it is something to help conserve water. With the drought and the increasing demands of Florida's growth.

You haven't heard the last about saving water. George and Arlene wick of Blue Water heard the conservation message years ago. Their monthly water bill $13 and 65 cents and this is a pencil cactus plant in short showers to fewer toilet flushes a big miserly with the water that flows from the city's tap has become a way of life. Water that falls naturally from the sky is another matter. On any given day here in the wicks colorful garden you'll find rows of gallon jugs lined up here and there gallon jugs everywhere. All of them filled with rainwater. We try to keep this exam D as we can just in case we have a rain so that the rain will be able to come down and fill up again.

When doing something good and I enjoy doing it and I think everybody should do it it's time to turn the water off because I don't like to waste water. Three more rain barrels on the backside of the house assures the wicks plenty of water for irrigation and when this one gets this high it fills the second barrel and when it gets a little higher it fills the serried barrel and a couple inches of rain will fill a song of 50 and the fourth one I'm on the side and with the hundred jugs you see around here. Probably got about 400 gallons of water here. At any particular time. Not only is George in Orleans yard an award winning example of how you can be water wise. You may have noticed this yard is also a place of whimsy. A hedge of bowling balls outdoorsy and the layers. The lady in the bear. Oh my wife's not jealous.

For the wicks this outdoor space filled with found objects collected mostly from trash piles and garage sales is pure pleasure. I'll find it and she puts it somewhere. The end of a good day. But what seems to please this retired couple most about their garden of plenty is the vision it has given them to save water. There's going to be an awful lot of people living here in Florida and they're all going to want to drink water and take a shower. So we have to realize now now is the time that we have to start doing the right thing and taking care of our water. Make us where would we be without it. Future Florida with no water is no future at all. Larry you were telling me the wicks and clear and remove their grass years ago. There are beautiful landscapes are now filled with drought tolerant plants and of course rain barrels

of their own. I think so too great to have you with us Larry. Thanks. Thanks for joining us this week. The discussion continues on our website where you can post comments ask questions or contribute story ideas for upcoming episodes. We'll be sure to get back to you. That's it for this week I'm Irene mayor. Join us again next week for Florida matters. Major funding for Florida matters comes from the mosaic company a leading producer

of fertilizer made from phosphate and natural resource found in Florida. America's farmers depend on Florida phosphate for their crop nutrition needs. Mosaic helping America grow.