MAIN INDEX | Some Solutions | Aquatic Plant Management and Domestic Water |
Protecting our Drinking Water | Drinking Water
Pollution
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Bottled Water | Water Reclamation |
Water Treatment Facilities | Aquatic Plants and
Wastewater Treatment |
Constructed Wetlands | Well Water
Guidelines | Water Conservation |
There are 16 million people living in Florida. In 2000, we used 7.7 billion gallons of freshwater a day: that's 481 gallons per person per day! Our projected population for the year 2020 is 21 million and our demand for fresh water is projected to increase to approximately 9.1 billion gallons per day.To help put this into perspective: a bathtub usually holds 50 gallons of water. It would take 20,000 bathtubs full of water to equal a million gallons of water; it would take 20,000,000 bathtubs full of water to equal a billion gallons of water. We each use more than 9 bathtubs full of water each day!
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WATER GOING AND COMING
About one-third of the freshwater we use in Florida is for municipal use, half of which is
used to water lawns. Another 7% is extracted by private domestic wells. The largest use, at 52%
of the freshwater that Floridians use, is for agriculture--including water for crops such as
tomatoes, sugarcane, and citrus. The third largest user, at about 10%, is industry and commerce.
With outdoor recreation being so popular in Florida, it is no surprise that a significant amount of
water, about 7%, is used for "recreational irrigation", such as irrigating golf courses. The smallest
use is for power generation which uses about 1% of the total freshwater used in Florida.
Florida's freshwater sources include:
groundwater - municipal wells and private wells tapping the aquifers surface water - pumps drawing water from lakes, rivers and canals springs - commercial bottlers and others taking water from springs reclaimed water - used freshwater made usable again in treatment facilities
According to the DEP's 2003 Annual Status Report on Regional Water Supply Planning, four of the five water management districts contain areas whose existing water sources are insufficient to meet 20-year needs. Flows and water levels of the Apalachicola River and Lake Okeechobee have never been lower. Drought conditions and low water levels in the aquifer contribute to sinkhole formation, water quality degradation, and the drying up of wells.
Southwest Florida (Pasco, Pinellas, Hillsborough, Sarasota, Charlotte, DeSoto, Polk, and Highlands counties) bears the burden of having the highest population density while at the same time having the most areas of water shortage. Some of these water-needy counties are having to get their water from water-rich counties. However, water shortages are starting to occur not just in the southern counties. Titusville, in central Florida, has notified the St. John's River Water Management District that it will not have enough water to meet their projected growth needs of 2010.
Places like the Florida Keys and St. Petersburg, now home to large-scale development, never had enough water in the first place. The Keys receive 16 million gallons of water a day from Homestead via a 130-mile long pipeline.
SOME SOLUTIONS
AQUATIC PLANT MANAGEMENT AND DOMESTIC
WATER
LAWS PROTECTING OUR DRINKING WATER SUPPLY
The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) is a federal law, passed in 1974, which has been
amended several times to expand both its breadth and the Environmental Protection Agency's
(EPA) power to enforce it.
The SDWA establishes primary and secondary drinking water quality standards for public
water systems that serve at least 15 service connections, or 25 or more people 60 days or more
out of the year. This law also mandates notification of the public
when water quality maximum contaminant levels are exceeded by individual water systems, and
further mandates enforcement action when drinking water is not treated properly,
exceeds water quality standards, or imposes any undue risk to the public's health. Here is the link
to the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Another important piece of federal legislation is the Clean Water Act of 1972. The
chief purpose of the Clean Water Act is the elimination of point source pollution to surface water.
Point source pollution is pollution whose cause can be traced back to a single source, such as a
pipe discharging waste from a factory. Groundwater is directly threatened by surface pollution
due to the natural linkage of surface and groundwater resources. When a party pollutes the
surface water, the hydrologic water cycle makes it more likely than not that groundwater is
simultaneously being contaminated. Here
is the link to the EPA Clean Water Act.
In addition to these federal laws, the Florida Legislature has enacted several laws and rules to
ensure that Florida's drinking waters are kept safe. Similar to the SDWA are Florida Statutes 403.850 - 403.864 which direct the Florida DEP to create and enforce
rules
regarding drinking water. These rules not only adhere to the federal government's national
primary and secondary drinking water standards, but they also create additional rules to fulfill
state requirements. These rules are contained in:
Existing and soon-to-come water shortages in Florida may be ameliorated, according to natural
possibilities, political will and citizen participation.
Some solutions include:
In a state where the availability of fresh water is already becoming problematic, every drop
counts. Aquatic plant management also counts: keeping certain aquatic plants under control
plays a key role in the maintenance of Florida's drinking water supply. When aquatic plants
invade public water supplies, they threaten the ability to use the water for drinking and other
domestic purposes.
Uncontrolled invasive aquatic plants in public water storage:
certain plant species greatly reduce water in infested lakes, rivers and wetlands by the
process of "evapotranspiration". For example, water hyacinth infestations transpire water (take it
up and send it to the atmosphere), eliminating up to 2.5 times more water from a system than
does simple evaporation. In fact, an acre of water hyacinth can transpire up to 54 inches of water
a year, which is just about the average annual rainfall amount in Florida. Evapotranspiration by
aquatic plants wastes hundreds of thousands of tons of needed freshwater in Florida every day.
See more about evaporation and transpiration on another page of our web site.
up to 70% of a water storage basin may be occupied by certain invasive submersed aquatic
plants such as hydrilla, leaving only about 30% of the basin for water.
foul tastes and odors are associated with increased organic loads caused by too much
vegetative biomass for the system to handle
with drinking and irrigation water intakes and costly pumping stations
water treatment facilities must add plant management costs to water treatment costs
Florida's water generally is considered safe for use by people and animals; in Florida rarely are
people advised not to drink water or to boil it. However, sometimes our drinking water may
contain contaminants such as bacteria, metals, and chemicals that cause public health concerns.
State and federal laws apply:
Sometimes, rules and regulations aren't enough to protect the things that are vitally
important. In
1987, the Florida Legislature created the Surface Water Improvement and Management program
(SWIM). It addresses the more problematic, hard-to-trace "non-point" source pollution. SWIM
recognizes that waterbodies are connected and dependent on one another throughout the
ecosystem. The five water management districts and the
Florida DEP work with other federal, state, and local governments as well as with the private
sector in order to combine resources. SWIM is responsible for
creating plans to improve at-risk waterbodies, directing the work needed to improve the damaged
waterbodies, and educating the public. There are 29 waterbodies on the SWIM waterbody priority
list.
For more information on SWIM, visit this DEP web page.
| Contaminant | Source | Symptoms
| Aluminum
| Chloride | natural minerals; seawater; road salt; fertilizers;
industrial wastes and sewage | salty tastes; corroded pipes, fixtures and
appliances; blackening and pitting of stainless steel
| Copper | leaching from copper water pipes and tubing;
industrial and mining wastes | bitter or metallic taste; blue-green stains on
plumbing fixtures
| Fluoride | natural minerals and industrial wastes
| brownish discoloration of teeth
| Iron | natural deposits in rocks and soil; leaching of cast
iron pipes in water distribution systems | brackish color; rusty sediment; bitter
metallic taste; brown-orange stains; iron bacteria and discolored beverages
| Manganese | natural deposits in rocks and soil | brownish color; black stains on laundry and fixtures; bitter taste; altered taste of
water-mixed beverages
| Silver | soil, coal, and mineral deposits; ore mining and
manufacture of alloys; photographic procedures and jewelry making | agryia, a
permanent blue-gray discoloration of skin, mucous membranes and eyes
| Sulfate | natural deposits or salts; byproducts of coal
mining; industrial wastes and sewage | bitter medicinal taste; scaly deposits;
corrosion; laxative effects; "rotten egg" odor from hydrogen sulfide gas formation
| Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) | dissolved minerals; iron
and manganese | hardness, scaly deposits; sediment; cloudy, colored water;
odor; staining; salty or bitter taste
| Zinc | natural deposits; leaching of galvanized pipes and
fittings | metallic taste
| |
|---|
| Contaminant | Source | Symptoms | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Color | iron, copper, or manganese; organic chemicals; organic matter | visible color tint
| Corrosivity | depends on temperature, acidity, hardness,
and oxygen content of water | pitted or leaking pipes; metallic taste; staining
due to lead, copper, iron, or zinc dissolved from plumbing
| Detergents/foaming agents | household and industrial
wastes | frothy, cloudy appearance; soapy taste and unpleasant odor
| Odor | dissolved gases, minerals, chemicals; leaking
underground storage tanks; landfill or septic runoff; organic matter | "rotten
egg", septic, musty or chemical smell
| pH | dissolved acid and alkaline materials | pitting of pipes and fixtures, bitter or metallic taste (low pH); slippery feel, soda taste,
scaly deposits (high pH.)
| |
For more information, see this University of Florida, IFAS, publication about water testing and drinking water standards.
Bottling water is a big industry in Florida. Sometimes they're bottling
natural spring water, sometimes they're filtering river water, and sometimes they're distilling
water from underneath a parking lot in Jacksonville.
| Carefully read the bottles to find out what your water is... |
Even the seemingly clean water bottled at the sources of pristine springs can contain alarming amounts of contaminants. A 1999 report by the National Resources Defense Council claimed that a large proportion of the bottled water brands in the U.S. tested "contained significant contamination." Twenty-two percent of 103 brands surveyed contained chemical contaminants that, if consumed over a long period of time, "could cause cancer or other health problems." The report stated that one brand simply called "Spring Water" turned out to have actually been tapped from beneath a parking lot next to a hazardous waste site. Other bottled water is simply processed city tapwater. To see more about this, read the full Natural Resources Defense Council's article.
Bottling genuine springwater might create environmental problems. Rivers and other aquatic areas experience reduced water and are otherwise being degraded as spring water flow is diverted into bottling plants and waiting tanker trucks. Tapping springs and aquifers can alter the movement of sediment in connected streams and disrupt the food supply for fish and other wildlife. In coastal areas, tapping aquifers can lead to saltwater intrusion.
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WATER RECLAMATION
In 2002, 584 million gallons per day of reclaimed wastewater was reused
in Florida.
Water reclamation plays an essential role in water resource, wastewater, and ecosystem
management in Florida. Reclamation reduces demands on valuable surface and groundwater,
reduces discharges to surface waters, recharges groundwater, and postpones costly investment
for development of new water sources and supplies. Water reuse has allowed some communities
to continue to grow even where the availability of freshwater sources has become extremely
limited.
Water reclamation entails taking domestic wastewater, giving it a high degree of treatment, and
releasing the reclaimed water for a new, beneficial purpose. Reclaimed wastewater is being used
for many purposes including:
WATER AND WASTEWATER TREATMENT FACILITIES
Or they may use "lime-softening", a process that uses settling tanks to remove unwanted
minerals and other natural contents; then lime is added to soften the water. (Lime in its rock-like
form is calcium oxide; when water is added and it is thoroughly mixed, it is converted into a
milky liquid of calcium hydroxide. This liquid is added to the water being treated, thus increasing
its pH and softening the water.)
Municipal domestic water is also chlorinated (chlorine is added) before it is placed in storage
tanks or sent through a pipeline distribution network; chlorination of public water systems is
required by federal law.
AQUATIC PLANTS FOR WASTEWATER TREATMENT
One of the first hyacinth treatment system in the U.S. was established
in Coral Springs, Florida, and it consists of 5 ponds that are less than 1.5 feet
deep. Similar to the Coral Springs project, one of the most ambitious wastewater treatment
systems using water hyacinth was constructed in San Diego, California and has been in operation
since 1984. This 1-million-gallon-per-day system was designed to convert raw sewage into
potable water, using water hyacinths as the major wastewater treatment component.
However, the water hyacinth is not the only plant capturing attention from water managers
around the U.S. and the world.
Emersed plant systems such as bulrush (Scirpus) and giant reed (Phragmites)
combined with duckweed (Spirodela and Lemna) have been used in wastewater
treatment operations that are suitable for both temperate and semi-tropical areas.
"CONSTRUCTED WETLANDS"
Research shows that plants such as cattail (Typha), bulrush (Scirpus), rush
(Juncus), and giant reed (Phragmites) have the most promise for wastewater
treatment. These plants are adapted to fluctuating water and nutrient levels and are more tolerant
of high pollutant concentrations.
Yet, natural wetlands are not appropriate areas for wastewater
treatment. Researchers are finding that it is not worth risking the possible loss of any
remaining natural wetlands before gaining a better understanding of their important roles in the
environment. Constructed wetlands provide relatively simple and inexpensive solutions for
dealing with many water pollution problems without detrimentally affecting natural wetland
resources.
Learn much more about constructed wetlands:
Here is
a PDF of the EPA manual for constructed wetlands for municipal wastewater treatment.
Here is a PDF
of California's manual for constructed wetlands for municipal wastewater treatment.
HAVE YOUR WELL WATER TESTED
It is recommended that you test your private well's water every year for total coliform bacteria,
nitrates, total dissolved solids, and pH levels. Often county health departments do tests for
bacteria and nitrates. For other substances, health departments, environmental offices, or county
governments should have a list of state certified laboratories.
Reasons to test your private well water
When freshwater has been spoiled by human use, it is not lost forever. Complex treatment
processes are employed to enable drinking water managers to "recycle" or "reclaim" water used
in kitchens, bathrooms, phosphate mining, manufacturing, and irrigation for future consumption.
The use of reclaimed water has increased significantly throughout the state and nation for all types
of uses.
This 1/2 billion gallons is a significant contribution to the state's current 7.7 billion gallon need.
Continuous monitoring of reclaimed water is required to ensure excellent water quality.
The Florida Department of Health has stated that a reuse facility designed, constructed, and
operated in accordance with federal laws poses no threat to public health.
See this South
Florida Water Management District web page on water reuse.
Freshwater in Florida has a unique taste because of its high mineral content. To alter and
improve taste, water treatment facilities may use a process called reverse osmosis that chemically
treats the water, and pushes it through high-pressure membrane filters to remove unwanted salt
and microscopic particles.
Water treatment is a complex process comprised of a variety of steps that may include:
Although wastewater treatment is a complex and expensive process, it is necessary in
order to conserve the
long-term viability of Florida's water resources. Water treatment helps the environment in three
important ways by:
For more information about water treatment and quality, visit;
The Tampa Water
Department's Water Quality Report for the year 2002.
For the past thirty years or so, water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) and other aquatic
plants have been used to treat primary (untreated) and secondary (partially treated) wastewater in
facilities around the world.
For more information about aquatic plant use for wastewater treatment, go to this NASA web site on water hyacinth
use or search the APIRS
database, using the keywords "wastewater treatment".
The most recent approach to using aquatic plants in wastewater treatment processes is through
the construction of artificial wetlands meant to simulate the actions and functions of marshes. A
"constructed wetland" therefore is a designed complex of saturated substrates, emersed and
submersed aquatic plants, wildlife, and water.
Both constructed and natural wetlands have five principal components:
Constructed wetlands have a broad applicability as wastewater treatment systems for an
array of
water pollution problems. Artificial wetlands are built to remove or transform a variety of
water pollutants while also providing wildlife and recreational benefits commonly associated with
natural wetland systems.
The water in public systems is required to be continually monitored. Lethal substances like
mercury and radon can leach into your well water and are undetectable by taste or smell. The
Tampa Water Department conducts 1000 analyses per month on its finished product. Doesn't it
make sense that users of private wells should also test their water, at least once in a while?
For more information, see this EPA web
site on private drinking water wells.
| Conditions or Nearby Activities | Test for: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Recurring gastro-intestinal illness | Coliform
bacteria
| Household plumbing contains lead
| pH, lead, copper
| Radon in indoor air or region is radon rich
| Radon
| Corrosion of pipes, plumbing
| Corrosion, pH, lead
| Nearby areas of intensive agriculture
| Nitrate, pesticides, coliform bacteria
| Coal or other mining operations nearby
| Metals, pH, corrosion
| Gas drilling operations nearby
| Chloride, sodium, barium, strontium
| Dump, junkyard, landfill, factory, gas station, or dry-cleaning
operation nearby
| Volatile organic compounds, total dissolved solids, pH, sulfate, chloride,
metals
| Odor of gasoline or fuel oil, and near gas station or buried
fuel tanks | Volatile organic compounds
| Objectionable taste or smell
| Hydrogen sulfide, corrosion, metals
| Stained plumbing fixtures, laundry
| Iron, copper, manganese
| Salty taste and seawater, or a heavily salted roadway nearby
| Chloride, total dissolved solids, sodium
| Scaly residues, soaps don't lather
| Hardness
| Rapid wear of water treatment equipment
| pH, corrosion
| Water softener needed to treat hardness
| Manganese, iron
| Water appears cloudy, frothy, or colored
| Color, detergents
| |
Compare your well's test results to federal and state drinking water standards by visiting this EPA web site about drinking water contaminants and regulations or call the Safe Drinking Water Hotline at 1 800-426-4791.
WATER CONSERVATION
Residents and visitors can help protect Florida's valuable supply of freshwater by:
Floridians use more water per capita than residents of any other state except California. In
addition, the water used by residents is threatened by contaminants in surface water runoff from
pavement, industrial waste, and residential and agricultural areas. One gallon of gasoline can ruin
1,000,000 gallons of water.
Reducing pollution and waste at the source leads to less money spent on water treatment. For
more information, visit this EPA web
site.
Federally funded programs such as Farm*A*Syst or Home*A*Syst helps residents and
agriculturists identify and solve environmental problems, including protecting drinking water. To
obtain a copy of a Home*A*Syst checklist that can help you find possible threats to your own
water supply contact:
National Farm*A*Syst/Home*A*Syst Program
303 Hiram Smith Hall
1545 Observatory Drive
Madison, WI 53706
Ph: 608.262.0024, Fax: 608.265.2775
www.uwex.edu/homeasyst/
There's not much we can do about Florida's growing population or agriculture's thirsty need for water (we have to eat), but Florida's citizens can be more conscientious about their water usage and learn ways to protect our most valuable and necessary asset - fresh, clean water!
The Florida DEP's Drinking Water web page
The EPA's web page on Florida Drinking Water
The Florida Department of Health's Bureau of Water Programs Drinking Water homepage
An article on bottled water from E/The Environmental Magazine
This page was authored by Sarah Cervone, Becca Hassell, Tara Muncaster and Vic Ramey,
with research assistance from Aimee Lyons.
Data is from the APIRS
database.
This page was designed and is managed by Becca Hassell.
Photography and graphics are by Ann Murray and Vic Ramey.
Vic Ramey is the editor.
DEP review is by Jeff Schardt and Judy Ludlow.
This project is a collaboration of
the Center for Aquatic and Invasive Plants, University of Florida,
and the Bureau of Invasive Plant Management, Florida Department of
Environmental Protection
