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Tampa Bay Water approves acquisition and permit transfers to boost South Hillsborough supplies
Summary
The board approved purchases and permit applications to acquire unneeded permitted capacity from private owners and Hillsborough County and to transfer quantities into the agency’s Balm farm and South Central Hillsborough well‑field permits, increasing available regional supply without new infrastructure.
Tampa Bay Water staff presented and the board approved a package of agreements and permit applications intended to increase available permitted water for South Hillsborough County without building new wellfield infrastructure.
Warren Hogg, presenting for staff, said Land Reserve and Farmland Reserve offered five properties in the Southern Water Use Caution Area with combined donor permit quantities that could transfer between 3,100,000 and 5,109,000 gallons per day. Hogg said staff used a unit acquisition price of $3.66 per gallon (CPI‑adjusted from a prior $2.00 per gallon basis) and that the final quantity and cost would be set during permitting with the Southwest Florida Water Management District.
Staff recommended (and the board approved) an agreement to acquire the permitted capacity and then to apply to modify the agency’s Balm farm water‑use permit (the county‑owned AgMart property) to accept a transfer increasing the permit’s annual average quantity by an amount to be determined by modeling and district review (staff cited an approximate range up to 5,946,000 gallons per day). Board members voted to approve the acquisition motion and the permit modification application; the motions were recorded as passing unanimously.
Hogg then presented a second companion agreement with Hillsborough County to acquire 344,800 gallons per day of unneeded permitted capacity from county‑owned property south of the C.W. Bill Young regional reservoir. The negotiated purchase price for the county transfer was $1,261,000. Board members voted to approve the acquisition and the companion permit modification application to increase the South Central Hillsborough Regional Wellfield permit to incorporate the county and other recently acquired quantities. Those motions were recorded as passed unanimously.
Hogg and county presenters said transfers were designed to meet the district’s net‑benefit rules for the Southern Water Use Caution Area and to leave an environmental recovery (10%) in place. Hogg noted a negotiation is ongoing with Hillsborough County to secure aquifer recharge credits that, if realized, could add another approximately 6,100,000 gallons per day to the permit using credits and a potential South Hillsborough wellfield sited on county lands.
Board members who spoke during the presentations asked staff to coordinate future acquisitions with member‑government utility staffs and to consider opportunities for county and municipal systems to offer unused permitted capacity for purchase. The board recorded the votes on these items as unanimous approvals.
