Water, water everywhere nor a drop to drink - final - September 26th, 1974

The title, from Coleridge\u27s Rime of the Ancient Mariner is an over-dramatization of a direful situation that we cannot allow to befall the citizens of Florida. Statewide we are not yet in the sad situation of the Ancient Mariner and his companions, nor we need ever to be if we but use our resources wisely and well, nonetheless, there are areas, such as Pinellas County, which has outgrown its peninsular supply and therefore, to avoid drinking salty water, has developed inadequate supplies inland. However, our water resources, which seem limitless to most laymen, definitely are finite and cannot continue to be developed haphazardly as has been the practice in the past. Even though they are renewable, they are renewable only within limits. Our problem is in determining what these limits are, how they vary from place to place and from time to time and how to manage the resources so as to prevent depletion, pollution, or salt-water encroachment. Carefully developed water budgets for our larger stream basins and ground-water basins will define the water crop that we develop from any or all the basins, and thus determine the people-carrying capacity of such areas. If we consumptively used the water crop we either must reduce wastes, and import, manufacture (desalinate), or re-use water again and again and thus augment and extend the natural water crop. But this will be achieved only at great expense, something the American people are not used to nor yet ready to pay. It would behoove us to learn well the magnitude of our natural water crop and the costs of its development, then manage our uses so as to live within its limitations. In any case, the cheap water in Florida is almost all developed already. Crea ting larg·e additional supplies will drive costs of water and sewerage treatment up beyond belief and may in the long run, act as a brake on the population explosion we are now experiencing.https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/parker_records/1015/thumbnail.jp