water

This morning in the online edition of First Coast News I read an article titled the same as this blog.  Officials from Alabama, Georgia and Florida have all signed a "confidentiality agreement" regarding ongoing negotiations over water rights.  It also noted that our Federal Goverment is involved in this as well.

I don't care what their intentions are, the water doesn't belong to local, state, or federal goverment to control and manipulate behind closed doors.  When it comes to life sustaining water they need to just deal with the aggravation of the people knowing what they're doing.

At a BCC workshop today (Nov. 20, 2007) Mr. Kirby Green with the St. Johns River Water Management District made a presentation about the state of the water supply in Florida.  My eyes were opened - wide, and my head was spinning.  Pretty scary stuff.

Like many growth related infrastructure issues, the numbers and the details can be mind numbing, but you don't have to be an engineer or a rocket scientist or a brain surgeon or anything else to imagine turing on a faucet and nothing coming out.  In the service area of the SJRWMD, the average per-person use of publicly supplied water is 150 gallons per day, or about 6.25 gallons per hour.  WOW!

There are more water woes from Orlando to the Keys being reported on.  The article was focused mainly on restrictions being considered for watering lawns, it appears they're permanent until you consider that there is a plan afoot to start tapping various Rivers and/or tributaries. 

It was news to me that the South Florida Water Management District is already drawing water from the everglades. The article does not reveal how much and it appears they're about to attempt to increase the "allowable amount" whatever that is. 

The article also says that South Floridas' backup system which is Lake Okeechobee is at a record low level of 10ft. 

In pondering all the issues facing us such as over or irresponsible development and its effect on natural resources and quality of life along with the general feeling that the people have lost control due to the greed of some special interests, corruption and voter apathy has led me to a few thoughts I would like to share.

I was raised to be seen and not heard, raised to believe Adults are always right and should never be questioned and that the Goverment was going to do what it was going to do.  I was raised to be accountable for myself but to hold no one else accountable (Adults are always right and should never be questioned.)  Is it any wonder there is a large part of the population who are apathetic to what is going on around them. 

I know there have been other blogs about this, but it seems like lately, every time I pick up the paper or turn on the local news, I see something else about taking about 250M gallons of water out of the river every day. All of this because uncontrolled growth south of us has put them in a position that they won't have enough water by 2013 (according to the news tonight).

Am I just being paranoid here, or does anyone else think that this is already a done deal. Kind of like our garbage collection contract.

I just can't believe that anyone actually thinks that this is s good cure to a self inflicted wound. The only thing I've heard from the ecologist and scientist is that they don't know what the damage would be other than killing off the sea grass.

An article in the TU online this morning reveals that central florida wants to tap the St Johns River in order to support future development. 

Do the powers that be have a good enough grip on the long term effects of messing with the enviroment to even be considering this?

Is this just another situation where the tax payers are going to foot the bill to line already very full pockets?

When you try to put 10lbs of bs in a 5lb bag will it not burst?  At some point does no one have the common sense when to realize that not everything should be developed? 

Very dangerous undertaking, for no true legitimate reason other then greed. 

I've been in town for about five weeks now. I no longer notice how the water smells when I'm taking a shower or brushing my teeth, but I still hate the way tap water tastes.

Kind of overly-mineralized and under-purified. Is there any reason for this? I know that you always notice how different the water tastes/smells when you visit a new area, but I can't imagine ever gladly drinking a big cup of tap water here. 

Oh yeah, and when I cook or clean dishes there always seems to be spots of white stuff (minerals?) on everything. Anybody know why? Or notice the same?