RYLAND HOMES: Water Resource Development & WUP Permitting

SI is assisting Ryland Homes in modifying several existing Small and Large General WUP’s for the irrigation of the lawn and landscape at several residential communities around the Tampa Bay area and also included the relocation of excessive quantities at these communities to another communities without a WUP. With the relocation of the quantities, a NEW Small General WUP was permitted within the SWUCA.

Bahia Lakes

Several ponds existed and were created within the development. Surface water could not be used for irrigation due to the poor water quality within the ponds. Due to the proximity of the community being so close to Tampa Bay, the surficial aquifer and the ponds has a brackish nature and is unsuitable for irrigation.

SI collected water quality samples and modeled the tidal ranges to show that the brackish nature of the pond water is due to the connection of the surficial aquifer to Tampa Bay.

Several challenges were faced during the processing of this WUP application and included the combining of several Small General WUP’s into a single Large General. Each of the three Small General WUP’s did not require crop reports to be submitted to SWFWMD. Data and past aerials were submitted to show that the existing use was allocated and modifying these quantities from agricultural water use to recreational/aesthetic uses was justified.

Copperstone

The Copperstone community is located in Manatee County and was converted from a citrus grove operation. The existing WUP was modified from agricultural use to recreational/aesthetic. Due to the new SWUCA rules effective January 1, 2007, a Net Benefit of more than 10% was permanently retired to the Floridian aquifer. The excess quantities from this WUP after the retirement of the Net Benefit were relocated to Oakleaf Hammock community.

Reclaimed water from Manatee County is used as the primary source for irrigation at Copperstone. One difficulty during the permitting process was to maintain groundwater quantities as standby to supplement the irrigation system when effluent is not available. Standby quantities were permitted for the full irrigation demand for such instances, leaving only 29,710 gpd to be relocated to the Oakleaf Hammock community. Groundwater modeling of the reduction of quantities at the Copperstone and the permitting of NEW quantities at Oakleaf showed that there were no impacts to existing users, surrounding wetlands, or the Floridan aquifer. A Net Benefit of 10% was also retired to the Floridan aquifer for the modification of the existing quantities from an agricultural water use to a recreation/aesthetic water use.

Oakleaf Hammock

The Oakleaf Hammock community did not have an existing WUP. It is located in the SWUCA and permitting quantities from the Floridan aquifer would have been extremely difficult if excess quantities were not relocated from the Bahia Lakes and Copperstone communities. The total water quantity relocated to a NEW WUP for the Oakleaf Hammock community was 154,950 gpd annual average and peak month of 489,070 gpd.