PANAMA CITY — Bay County’s water supply is in good shape, experts said at a forum on Monday at Gulf Coast State College.
Florida Department of Environment Protection policy director Tom Beck said Bay County has plenty of available drinking water because of Deer Point reservoir.
And even though a survey presented at the forum reported concerns with reclaimed and stormwater projects, Northwest Florida Water Management District Resource Planning Program Manager Paul Thorpe said Lynn Haven and Panama City Beach are good examples for using reclaimed water for irrigation and landscaping.
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“It’s a huge opportunity at any rate,” Thorpe said of reclaimed water in Bay County. “It’s a great opportunity to approach long-term water and be proactive and environmentally aware.”
Bay County supplies Tyndall Air Force Base with reclaimed water through the Advanced Wastewater Treatment group.
County Utilities Services Director Paul Lackemacher said the county is looking to increase capacity at the North Bay Plant, which has the equipment to process reclaimed water, specifically with a main along State 79 paid for with a $1 million grant from the state. Lackemacher said the county has received some interest from Gulf Power for reclaimed water.
Reclaimed water usually comes from wastewater and, in Florida, is usually processed through natural filtration, going back through water wells or other water sources, before being processed through normal water treatment practices.
NWFWMD, the boundaries of which stretch from Escambia to the middle of Jefferson County, has $8 million to disperse as a part of the water supply grant program, most of it likely to pay for infrastructure. The due date for applications was Oct. 1 and NWFWMD received 87 requests for about $36 million total.
“We can’t fund all of it but we can put a dent in it,” Thorpe said.
The FDEP conducted a survey of private users, government entities, public utilities, consultants and manufacturers about stormwater and reclaimed water. They expected 300 responses and got 942. Individual users, local governments, public utilities, consultants and environmental organizers were the most represented groups of responders.
The top problems for reclaimed and stormwater projects were infrastructure, fiscal constraints, storage availability and regulatory actions.
For infrastructure and fiscal concerns, the reverse osmosis process required for brackish water takes machinery that can cost multiple millions of dollars, Beck said.
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Beck added that some Gulf Coast counties — Walton and Santa Rosa as examples — have had problems keeping up with storage capacity for stormwater.
As far as regulations, the surveys were not clear about suggested revisions for FDEP, which is the regulatory agency of record. Beck said more specific essay responses need to reviewed but that they could call for more regulation or less.
“Some regulations can be incentives for the development of reusable water systems,” Thorpe said.