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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… Read more

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… Read more

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… Read more

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… Read more

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… Read more

  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… Read more

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… Read more

“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,… Read more

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… Read more

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… Read more

Award-Winning Restoration A place where people used to illegally dump everything from scrap metal to household waste is the site of an award-winning restoration project. The joint project between SWIM, Hillsborough County’s resource management section and the District’s Davis Tract restoration project received the Hillsborough County Planning Commission’s top environmental award, the Award of Merit, 2002. The 60-acre former landfill is part of the 354-acre… Read more

Above: “Before” and “after” photos show Florida-friendly landscaping installed. Right: Angela Maraj, District regional builder/developer landscape education specialist, met with Stephen Bissonnette (left), Alafia River Basin Board secretary, and Scott Coulombe (right), Polk County Builders Association executive director, at a recent builder/developer workshop in Polk County. A change is taking place in the Florida homebuilding industry. As public and industry… Read more

The District is taking the state’s annual water conservation efforts in April to another level as the need to conserve is more important than ever. “April is part of Florida’s dry season and the time when the District makes an extra effort to remind residents about the need to conserve,” said Michael Molligan, communications director. “However, this year our water supplies are extremely low, so we have been stepping up our public awareness campaign because we need… Read more

Tampa Bay Water Service Area Remains at Highest Alert Level The District’s Governing Board voted in June to continue the Modified Phase IV (or Critical) water shortage restrictions for potable water use in the Tampa Bay Water service area until July 31, 2009. “While the region is out of the immediate crisis, we are still contending with the effects of the long-term drought,” said David Moore, District executive director. “The May rainfall helped, but the summer… Read more

Volunteers are a valuable resource for the District, which is why several groups and one individual who take part in the District’s Land Resources Volunteer Program were recognized at the Governing Board’s August and September meetings. The Flatlanders, Southcreek Equestrians, Florida Trail Association, Withlapopka Community Volunteers, West Central Florida Council of the Boy Scouts of America and Kyle DeVary were presented with the President’s Volunteer Service Award — a… Read more

Brian Townsend, District senior heavy equipment operator (left), and Stephanie Green, senior land management specialist, supported the Florida Division of Forestry at the Santa Fe fire. With less than 24 hours notice, the District was called upon by the Florida Division of Forestry (FDOF) to send staff and equipment to help fight two wildfires outside the District’s 16-county region. District Land Manager Kevin Love received the call from the FDOF on the… Read more

The "Southwest Florida Water Management District's(Southwest Florida Water Management District)":/ "Governing Board(Governing Board)":/about/governingboard last week voted to help fund $1.9 million in projects that will help reduce groundwater withdrawals in eastern Hillsborough County by 550,000 gallons per day and 18 million gallons for frost/freeze protection.All five projects are located on strawberry farms within the proposed Dover/Plant City Water Use Caution Area.… Read more

At today’s meeting, the Southwest Florida Water Management District’s Northwest Hillsborough Basin Board adopted a fiscal year 2007 (FY2007) millage rate of 0.268 mill, which is the same as the current fiscal year.The budget for FY2007 is $9,288,171, which is an increase of $180,006 from the adopted FY2006 budget. The main reason for this increase is due to increased property values offset by a reduction in state funding. FY2007 will run from Oct. 1, 2006, through Sept. 30… Read more

Northwest Hillsborough Basin Board Sets Proposed Millage RateAt its June 8 meeting, the Southwest Florida Water Management District’s Northwest Hillsborough Basin Board adopted a proposed fiscal year 2007 (FY2007) millage rate of 0.268 mill, which is the same as the current fiscal year.The proposed budget for FY2007 is $8,213,055, which is a decrease of $895,110 from the adopted FY2006 budget. The main reason for this decrease is a reduction in state funding. FY2007… Read more