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The Southwest Florida Water Management District recently recognized six Polk County projects as outstanding school, community grant or volunteer programs that focus on water resources education. A total of 52 projects were recognized during the October 7 Reflect, Connect, Celebrate Water Resources Education Conference at the Brooker Creek Preserve Environmental Education Center in Tarpon Springs.To select the awardees, District staff reviewed grants applied for by teachers…

The "Southwest Florida Water Management District's Governing Board":http://www.swfwmd.state.fl.us/about/governingboard/ voted to let Modified Phase III water shortage restrictions expire today for Citrus, Hernando, Lake, Levy, and Sumter counties as well as the City of Dunnellon and The Villages in Marion County due to improvements in the region's water resources.This means those counties will return to the District's "year-round water conservation measures":http://www.…

Judy Whitehead, Governing Board chair and chair ex officio of the District’s Coastal Rivers Basin Board, and her husband, Don, enjoy spending time with their grandsons, Pierson and Daniel. Judy Whitehead was surprised and gratified that her fellow Governing Board members thought enough of her to elect her as their chair. “I’m not particularly brilliant or knowledgeable. I’m just a small-town grandma,” she said. Despite her modesty, her fellow Board members…

The District’s Governing Board voted Tuesday for the latest slate of officers for the 2021-2022 term. Governing Board members are unpaid, citizen volunteers who are appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the Florida Senate. The Governing Board sets policy for the District, whose mission is to protect water resources, minimize flood risks and ensure the public’s water needs are met. The new officers are:…

Safety First  Gary Kuhl, left, Operations Department Director, accepted an award from Stephen H. Partney, P.E., Association of State Dam Safety Officials (ASDSO) Program Administrator at a recent banquet in Arizona. The District’s Operations Department has been recognized on a national level for its commitment to safety. The Association of State Dam Safety Officials (ASDSO) recently presented the District with the Southeast Region Award of Merit for…

Doris Heitzmann, a horticulturist and community outreach coordinator with the Pinellas County Extension office, evaluates the landscape at Venetian Bay. Members of the Venetian Bay Homeowners Association (HOA) wanted to do their part to conserve water, so they looked to the City of St. Petersburg and the Pinellas County Extension office for help. The Venetian Bay community consists of 22 waterfront and 51 nonwaterfront townhomes in St. Petersburg. In August…

  For Trisha Neasman, growing up was anything but ordinary. Raised in a military family, Neasman has lived in a variety of places, including New Jersey, Mississippi, Texas and Japan. “Moving around helped me to become more independent and allowed me to experience living in cities of all sizes,” said Neasman. With each move, she embraced all that each city had to offer. Her favorite place to live was in Lorman, Mississippi, where her father was a…

Above, plantings at the Tampa office are beyond the building eaves, requiring less irrigation.  Below, fixture supply lines are required to be reinforced. As in most District offices, water-saving fixtures are used.  The Tampa Service Office campus has the first water management district building to be certified under the Florida Water StarSM commercial standard. It’s also only the second government building in the state to be certified…

The Southwest Florida Water Management District is encouraging residents who irrigate their lawns to “watch the weather, wait to water” during the months of July, August and September.According to research by the University of Florida, an average of three-quarters of an inch of water every three to five days is enough to replenish the grass during the summer. In fact, Florida receives an average rainfall of 53 inches a year, and most of that falls between June…

Six projects in the Manasota Basin were awarded Community Education Grants from the Southwest Florida Water Management District. The Manasota Basin includes Manatee and Sarasota counties. The grants, which are up to $5,000 each, will help fund projects that provide communities the opportunity to learn about water resources.This year the District awarded 49 grants Districtwide for a total of $171,444. This is the 10th year Community Education Grants have been available.The…

The Southwest Florida Water Management District is proud to announce the recipients of the 2006 Community Education Grant Program. The grants, which are up to $5,000 each, will help fund projects that provide communities the opportunity to learn about water resources.This year the District awarded 34 grants Districtwide for a total of $151,278. Of those 34 grants awarded, five were awarded to groups in Pinellas County.The overall goal of the Community Education Grant…

Ten Citrus County teachers are among the educators who were awarded Splash! school grants through the "Southwest Florida Water Management District(Southwest Florida Water Management District)":/.This year 206 "Splash! grants(Splash! School Grants)":/education/schoolgrants were awarded to educators across "the District's 16-county region":/data/map.Mary Margaret Hull, lead communications coordinator, attributes the effectiveness of the grant program in Citrus County to the…

Advanced technology has reached nearly every single aspect of the District in one way or another throughout the organization’s history, most notably in the past two decades. “The technological changes during my tenure alone were like going from horse and buggy to putting a man on the moon in a very short period of time,” said Pete Hubbell, District executive director from 1988 to 1997. Information Resources In the early 2000s, the District’s operating system…

Deborah Webb, student intern,working on the Alkalinity Titrator; Matt Jablonski, staff chemist, measures chlorophyll concentrations. Every day, Laura Casino, District chemist, takes water samples from ice-filled coolers delivered to the lab for chlorophyll analysis. Since chlorophyll degrades quickly, the samples are collected in opaque containers that protect it from any light and then preserved in ice. Laura removes the containers, taking short breaks between…

As the Invasive Plant Threatens to Gain a Foothold in the Green Swamp, Agencies Cooperate to Fight It Photo courtesy USDI National Park Service With threats from new invasive plants and animal species continuing to rise in Florida, the District is battling to keep Old World climbing fern from infesting the 560,000-acre Green Swamp. Old World climbing fern, a new invasive vine, is spreading northward from south Florida and has been detected and treated as…

  Cockroach Bay before and after (top right) restoration.                   Gazing from atop the crest of “Mount Cockroach,” visitors were treated to the views of lush wetlands, uplands and coastal habitats of Cockroach Bay. They saw birds and other wildlife freely roam through the flourishing vegetation that surrounded the calm waters. But the distant view of city…

Extremely low water supplies in storage as region enters dry seasonThe Southwest Florida Water Management District’s Governing Board voted Tuesday to tighten water restrictions for all of Hillsborough, Pasco and Pinellas counties.The Governing Board has enacted these additional measures at the request of Tampa Bay Water, the region’s wholesale water supplier. Tampa Bay Water requested the District’s assistance because its water supplies have not returned to…

“This could change the way we think about construction in the future.”  —Ruffin Gray A Lakeland business saved thousands of gallons of water and paid less for utilities its first year by constructing its new headquarters to Florida Water StarSM standards. Kyra InfoTech, an information technology consulting business headquartered in Lakeland, used 70 percent less water than a comparable business in the area, according to Ruffin Gray,…

Eight Pinellas County projects were awarded Community Education Grants from the Southwest Florida Water Management District. These grants provide up to $5,000 to help fund projects that provide communities an opportunity to learn about water resources.This year the District awarded 38 grants Districtwide for a total of $136,598. This is the 11th year Community Education Grants have been available.The overall goal of the Community Education Grant Program is to actively…

New Leadership If there’s one certainty, it is this: Thomas G. Dabney is prepared. Soon after being named to the Governing Board in April 2000, Dabney granted a wide-ranging interview to The Sarasota Herald-Tribune. The interview covered such complex topics as saltwater intrusion and the hydrogeology of west-central Florida. He was prepared. Dabney was prepared one year after joining the Board when he was named vice chair, devouring mountains of material that…