All`s Quiet on the Water Front

Although we have finally received some rain in the past few days, most of our state remains on water restrictions due to the continual drought now in its fourth year in Florida. With water supplies dwindling and thousands of new residents moving to Florida everyday, it is only a matter of time before there is a renewed effort to build a water pipeline from the Suwannee River to the Tampa Bay Area. But we do not hear much said about these plans from our elected officials.

It is smart politics for our leaders in Tallahassee to remain quiet and not show their hand until after the elections in November. The water supply issue, more than any other in our states history, will divide the rural areas from the urban areas in what will be remembered as the Florida Water Wars. The political leaders from North Central Florida are quiet because there is very little they can do with their handful of votes in the legislature compared to the bus full of votes that the Tampa Bay area legislative delegation can muster. And that delegation is silent also because they do not want to let their plans be known before the next election.

Those large parcels of land that the Southwest Florida Water Management District owns along the Suwannee River were not purchased so that the folks from the Tampa Bay area could come up here and have a picnic along the river. They were purchased in order to sink wells and pump the water south. All that they have been waiting for is the political power to get the legislation passed and a Governor who will sign the bill, they now have both.

In the last Governors race, Jeb Bush was promoting his plan to privatize the water supply in Florida through a publication titled the "Florida Water Law: Bureaucratic to the Last Drop." This was a plan published by the Foundation for Florida's Future, a political think tank in which Jeb Bush is the Chairman. It raised a lot of money for his campaign and it also signaled that if he were elected that his administration would reorganize the water laws in Florida in order to allow a pipeline to be built from the Suwannee River.

But Governor Jeb Bush is not talking about his water plan this time around. He knows he will need the votes of North Florida voters in order to be re-elected, and a new state water board that will allow a pipeline to be built from the Suwannee River to Tampa Bay does not seem like a good strategy to get votes around Levy County.

But now is exactly the correct moment to raise this issue with those individuals who are seeking state office, especially Governor Jeb Bush, who will have the final word. We must know going into the voting booth this election who is going to protect our water supply in North Florida and who is going to sell us down the river, and in this case, sell the river also.