Tampa City Council discusses reclaimed water and Indirect Potable Reuse

The Tampa City Council on Thursday held a long awaited workshop on exploring the possibility of using IPR, or Indirect Potable Reuse, to address their water needs in the future.

The idea has been championed by Councilman Charlie Miranda, who initially brought up the issue at council last year.  Recently there have been two public workshops discussing the proposal on the USF campus, and IPR itself is being done currently in places  like Orange County, California, El Paso and Virginia.  The Councilman has discussed bringing the issues before the voters of Tampa to decide in March of 2011.

Also discussed was a report that the city paid consultants $140,000.  That study concluded that if the city worked with its neighbors and Swiftmud, it could do build an extensive reclaimed water program for approximately $130 million, much lower than what Miranda has been saying would be the cost, in comparison to IPR.

However, upon prodding by Miranda, Mike Smith with the group CDM said that that $130 million figure  could go up to $340 million.

This article appears in Feb 24 – Mar 2, 2010.