The Southwest Florida Water Management District and the City of Inverness recently signed an agreement for a project that will save 700,000 gallons of water per day (gpd).
This project will allow the Inverness Golf and Country Club to reduce its dependence on potable water sources for irrigation at its golf course and give the city the ability to provide reclaimed water, through existing piping, to the Citrus County Holden Park athletic fields to reduce its use of groundwater for irrigation.
This alternative water supply project will construct approximately 17,000 linear feet of a 16-inch reclaimed water transmission main and expand a pump station located at the City’s wastewater treatment plant.
The project, which is being funded over a three-year period, is estimated to cost $2,010,000 million. The District’s Withlacoochee River Basin Board ($874,350) and the City of Inverness ($874,350) are funding the project. Additional funds will come from the Water Protection Sustainability Trust Fund ($261,300).
The Water Protection and Sustainability Trust Fund was created by the state Legislature to provide funding to water management districts to provide assistance to local entities in developing alternative water supplies. The District uses the funds to assist with its highly effective partnership programs, including Water Supply and Resource Development, New Water Sources Initiative and Cooperative Funding programs.
The estimated completion date is Spring 2008.
Reclaimed water is wastewater that has received at least secondary treatment and is used for a beneficial purpose, such as irrigation. By offsetting demand for ground water and surface water, this alternative, non-traditional water source reduces stress on environmental systems, provides economic benefits by delaying costly water system expansions, and eliminates the need to discharge wastewater effluent to surface waters.