The Southwest Florida Water Management District and Pasco County recently signed an agreement for a project that will expand Pasco County’s reclaimed water system customer base and potentially save nearly 400,000 gallons of potable water per day.
This project will connect the Shady Hills wastewater treatment facility to the Pasco County State Road 52 East/West Regional Reclaimed Water Interconnect, which is being designed to transport excess volumes of reclaimed water from west Pasco County to areas where demand exceeds supply in the central and eastern portions of Pasco County.
The Shady Hills project consists of the design and construction of a five- million-gallon reclaimed water storage tank, reclaimed water pump station, and approximately 22,800 linear feet of reclaimed water transmission line.
This project is expected to provide reclaimed water to approximately 1,325 additional residential customers, providing a potential offset of 397,500 gallons per day of potable water. Some of the communities that may benefit from this project include the Land O Lakes area development of Connerton and the Wesley Chapel area developments of Wiregrass, Watergrass, and Meadowpointe.
This project is expected to cost $7.4 million, which will be split between the District and Pasco County. Because this project is part of a regional effort to increase the use of reclaimed water, the District has budgeted $592,000 from the states Water Protection and Sustainability Trust Fund.
Construction on the Shady Hills project is expected to begin in May 2009 and will be complete by April 2012.
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 potable water system expansions, and eliminates the need to discharge wastewater effluent to surface waters.