Citrus Chronicle
By: Terry Witt (terrywitt@chronicleonline.com)
Published: January 22, 2007

A longtime opponent of Suncoast Parkway 2 has resurrected an old map she says raises serious questions about whether a water transmission line could be built along the toll road from Citrus County to the Tampa area.

Janet Masaoy, chairwoman of Citizens Opposed to Suncoast Tollway (COST), said the 28-year-old U.S. Army Corps of Engineers map shows water pipelines running along the route now planned for the parkway.

Masaoy said the linear well fields on the map are a fancy name for water pipelines, and she found it highly coincidental that the parkway would be built in the same general corridor once identified as the potential site for water lines.

Masaoy made her comments Wednesday to the Withlacoochee Regional Water Supply Authority.

“The coincidence is very striking to me,” she said. “It’s just too coincidental.”

Masaoy said the map shows two proposed linear well fields in the same area as the parkway corridor, one extending from the Tampa Bay area north to what appears to be Pine Ridge, which lies just below Lake Rousseau. A second line extending from Tampa to just north of U.S. 98.

She said Suncoast Parkway 1, which terminates in northern Hernando County, has a 400-foot-wide right-of-way, enough spare room for a water transmission line.

She said the Sierra Club gave her the Corps study.

Authority members said they were not concerned that water transfers might be possible along the Suncoast Parkway.

Citrus County Commissioner Joyce Valentino, who is board chairwoman, said transferring water from Citrus County south to Tampa Bay is not feasible at this time.

“I don’t think they are putting the Suncoast Parkway through Citrus County so they can put a water pipeline in,” Valentino said.

But Valentino agreed the Authority should be vigilant when it comes to water transfers.

Masaoy said the map was part of a document titled “4 River Basins Project Florida; Water Resources Management Study.” The study was by the Jacksonville office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in August 1979.

Jack Sullivan, executive director of the Withlacoochee Regional Water Supply Authority, said he was familiar with the map Masaoy presented to the board, but he felt it was mere coincidence and nothing more that the proposed water transmission lines track the route of the parkway.

Sullivan did acknowledge that the authority was formed in 1977 when the Withlacoochee Regional Planning Council learned of the 4 Basins study and the proposal for water transfers to Tampa. He was a member of the planning council that met with the Southwest Florida Water Management District to discuss the study.

Sullivan said in the mid 1980s when the parkway was in the planning stages there was some talk of the parkway being the perfect vehicle to do lineal well fields, but nothing ever came of it.

“It was just one of those things being knocked around at the time,” he said.

Since that time, Sullivan said the Florida Legislature has passed the Local Sources first law that dramatically lessened the potential for water transfers.

The law requires governments to exhaust local alternatives for producing water before looking beyond their boundaries.

Tampa Bay Water, which supplies the entire Tampa Bay region with drinking water, formed a partnership with the Southwest Florida Water Management District in 1998 to develop alternative water supplies.

Sullivan said the partnership led to construction of a 25-million gallon desalination plant and construction of a large water reservoir. He said more alternative water supply projects are planned.

He said there are no short-range or long-range plans by Tampa Bay Water to look north for water supplies.

If Tampa Bay ever does, he said the Withlacoochee Regional Water Supply Authority would stand in its way.

“That’s what we intended to do, was put ourselves in the path of anything that would come down the pike,” he said.