District staff is asking agricultural and recreational water use permit holders for their input on how the District can make the online permit data submittal process more user-friendly.
Reported permit data is used by the water management district to help manage the state’s water resources and can be used by permit holders to conserve water and energy. The District’s goal is to streamline this process and make information easily accessible for the public and District staff.
Permit holders have been able to submit their pumpage data online since Oct. 2002. Participation in online data submission is approximately 50 percent. However, crop reporting forms, which are required for all agricultural and recreational permits of 100,000 gallons per day or more, are currently not accepted online.
“The District wants to create a web portal that will encourage online permit data submittal and provide the users with information in various reports,” said Ron Cohen, P.E., agricultural and irrigation engineer.
District staff would like to know:
• What is your opinion about using the online system?
• What do you like about the process?
• What would make the online submittal process easier?
In addition, District staff want to know what kind of data permit holders would like to get back from the system, such as:
• Would it be helpful to be able to access historical pumping information?
• Would you like to receive the current weather conditions and freeze warnings through the system?
The District has developed a short survey to collect feedback from water use permit holders. The survey is located on the District’s web site at WaterMatters.org/survey/ through Nov. 1, 2008.
If you have questions about the survey or the proposed system, please call the District’s Regulation Performance Management Department at (352) 796-7211 or 1-800-423-1476, ext. 4300.