Summer 61 Ask that question of five different people, and you may get just as many answers. In a recent survey about water, more than half of Clearwater residents were not sure of the source of their tap water. Guesses on the source of the city’s water supply included the Floridan aquifer, water treatment plants, the beach, Pasco County and even states further north. If you guessed that our water comes from the aquifer, you’d be correct. The Floridan aquifer system is a major source of groundwater in the United States, and is located from several hundred to nearly 3,000 feet below the ground under Florida, southern Georgia and small parts of adjacent Alabama and South Carolina. In total, the Floridan aquifer system extends over 100,000 square miles and produces more than 3 billion gallons of water each day. This may seem like a lot of water, but considering all of the major cities the aquifer serves, it’s easy to understand how important conservation and reuse becomes, particularly during times of drought. Here in Clearwater, residents use about 11.2 million gallons of water daily. Most of this water is pumped directly from the aquifer through city-owned and operated groundwater wells and is carefully treated through reverse osmosis to remove salts and other inorganic solids. The result is a pure, fresh tasting water that goes from the treatment facility to your tap. While Clearwater is mostly self-sufficient in supplying water to our residents, daily demand for water does require us to purchase some of our water supply from Pinellas County Utilities. To keep costs manageable and ensure the future of our water, the city began researching alternative water conservation and reuse programs back in 2007. The following year, Clearwater embarked on a pilot project known as Groundwater Replenishment to explore recharging the aquifer and creating a new water source. My Clearwater Where Does My Water Come From? Assembling a team of industry leading scientists and engineers, the Public Utilities Department launched a small-scale pilot purification project in 2013 to test the feasibility of building a groundwater replenishment facility in Clearwater. The pilot ran for a one-year period, and more than 25,000 tests were monitored by third-party testing facilities to verify reliability and consistency of the rigorous three-step purification process. As a result of these scientific findings and previous successes in other cities throughout the country, the city was confident that reclaimed water could be recycled and purified to a state equal to or better than bottled water. This water could then be balanced and safely reintroduced into the aquifer to blend with naturally purified water and ultimately end up at the tap, after many years of flowing gently through the Floridan aquifer. After thorough testing and funding support from the Southwest Florida Water Management District (SWFWMD), the city of Clearwater is now ready to embark on construction of a full-scale groundwater replenishment facility at their Northeast Water Reclamation Facility off of State Route 580 and McMullen Booth Road. Once in operation, this treatment process will produce more than three million gallons of purified recycled water a day to be reintroduced to the aquifer, reducing reliance on purchasing additional water and, more importantly, providing a new water supply to protect the ecosystem and environment that we call home. So the next time someone asks, “Where did this water come from?” you’ll know the important role the Floridan aquifer plays, and how the city and the SWFWMD are working to make sure we do our part to RECYCLE, RECHARGE, REPLENISH! Learn more about Groundwater Replenishment by visiting myclearwater.com/groundwater, and sign up for the project mailing list for updates.
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