A Southwest Florida Water Management District project will help a Hillsborough County vegetable grower reduce groundwater pumping and stormwater runoff.
The project is at the Tornello Landscape Corporation and is part of the District’s Facilitating Agricultural Resource Management Systems (FARMS) program, which is a cost-share reimbursement program that conserves water and protects water quality.
The project involves collecting stormwater from the roofs of three acres of greenhouses to use for irrigation. The project will also collect and recirculate excess irrigation water from the hydroponically-grown plants inside the greenhouses.
The project components include multiple stormwater collection tanks, the piping needed to connect the tanks to the hydroponic irrigation system and a meter to allow them to report pumpage.
According to the farm’s District-issued water use permit, the nursery is permitted to use an average of 40,200 gallons of water per day (gpd) to irrigate bamboo through overhead sprinklers. This project is expected to reduce pumping by about 12,060 gpd, or about one-third of the permitted quantity.
The Tornello Landscape Corporation is located in Ruskin, which is within the Southern Water Use Caution Area (SWUCA.) A water use caution area is a designated area established in response to District studies which indicate that overuse may result in saltwater intrusion or threatened groundwater resources.
The project is expected to cost $100,000, of which up to $50,000 will be funded by the District. The remaining cost will be paid by the farm. The District’s funding will be shared by the Governing Board, $12,500; the Alafia River Basin Board, $12,500; and state appropriations, $25,000.
The FARMS program is jointly funded by state appropriations, the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and the District’s Governing Board and Basin Boards. This program is expected to reduce groundwater pumping by 40 million gallons per day by 2025.