CAO 26-177 Water Conservation Month and drought
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Thank Thank you. Thank you. All right, now we'll go to RS1.
Okay, do we have anybody here for the Water Conservation Month in Pasco County? The month of April.
Please come forward, yeah.
Alrighty. Resolution number CAO 26-177, a resolution by the Board of County Commissioners of Pasco County, Florida, declaring the month of April 2026 as Water Conservation Month in Pasco County. Whereas safe, clean, and sustainable water resources are essential to Pasco County citizens, visitors, the environment, and the economy. And whereas, although Pasco County has a limited supply of fresh water in our underground
aquifer, lakes, and rivers, the county's population. Population and need for water resources continues to increase. And whereas droughts and water shortages serve as a reminder that Florida's water resources, no matter how diverse, are finite. And whereas Florida has established the encouragement and promotion of water conservation and reuse as As state objectives in Chapter 373 and 403 Florida statutes. And whereas
every business, industry, school, and citizen can make a difference when it comes to conserving water, thus promoting a healthy economy and community. And whereas the state of Florida Water. Water Management Districts, Tampa Bay Water and its member governments, UF, IFAS Extension Pasco County, and the Florida Governmental Utility Authority are working with other community supporters to increase awareness about the importance of water conservation. And whereas,
to preserve potable water resources, Pasco County treats wastewater to produce high-quality reclaimed water, stores nearly 700 million gallons in reservoirs and tanks, and delivers approximately 25 million gallons per day of reclaimed water to about 41,000 residents. And to the variety of other customers and locations. Whereas the state of Florida and the Southwest Florida Water Management District and Pasco County have previously dedicated April,
typically a dry month when potable water demands are most acute, as Florida Waters Conservation Month. Month to encourage citizens to help preserve Florida's precious water resources. And whereas the continued support of April as Florida's Water Conservation Month reinforces conservation messages, ordinances, and efforts put forth by the Pasco County Board of County Commissioners in its support and encouragement of conservation measures. Now, therefore, be it resolved by the Board
of County Commissioners of Pasco County, Florida, that said board hereby declares the month of April 2026 as Water Conservation Month in Pasco County and calls upon each citizen to help protect this precious, precious shared resource. Done and resolved in regular sessions. session with a quorum present and voting the seventh day of April 2026.
Move approval. Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. And Sandra, come on up. I see April's with the back. Come on up. Oh no maybe maybe not.
Good morning, Chairman Mari Members of the Board. For the record, I'm Sandra Anderson and I have the blessing of being the Director for Customer Information and Services for Pasco County Utilities. And you can see from the variety of people we have here, it takes more than just Pasco County Utilities to enforce water conservation. programs you guys have funded over the years and support it. You rally around, you point things out to us. Um you're willing to ask for help uh when you have any issues and you're willing to send people our way working together, we can make a difference with the Pasco
County and the water conservation. Now whoever's praying for or doing the rain dancing for the Thank you. Thank you. It took me extra long to get to work today and I loved every long minute of it. So we do know that. I would like to just uh for a minute uh pass it over to Phoenix McKinney, she is our water conservation coordinator who oversees all the water conservation programs at our department, and Connor, who is a new ad thanks to the board, uh, to our water conservation team. Thank you, Phoenix. You're just worried about the whole question.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Board Members. Phoenix McKinney, Water Conservation Coordinator for Pasco County Attorney. It's a pleasure for me to be here with you again to thank you so much for your ongoing support for water conservation. As you know, it is an ongoing issue and we're in an extreme drought, so it's extremely important. Right now. Sandra did ask me to make a couple of comments about our programs. We do have a number of programs to help yourself and to help our customers throughout the area. We do
provide rebates through our water provider, Tampa Bay Water. Those go to business. Those are available to private individuals. We have some customized rebates, we have toilet rebates, and we have rebates to assist with efficient irrigation. We're available to assist our customers with some site. visits to assist them with making changes to their irrigation schedules to help them reduce their irrigation. We're available to try to
assist them in looking at their water use patterns and making recommendations for how they can reduce their use and a number of other things just to ensure that uh our customers have ongoing access to information and assistance to make sure they're using their uh water as efficiently as possible. And again, we really appreciate your support as well. Thank you so much.
Right? Okay. Amber, you want to say anything?
Thank you so much, Commissioner for focusing on this every year. As the others have stated, we are in a phase three water shortage order currently. And with your efforts, with the conservation efforts and the little bit of rain that we do receive, we are able to increase our water. of resources to get us through this dry time. But thank you so much for your continued efforts and focusing on your communities and letting them know about the the different water conservation
um uh devices and technologies that are available currently thank you
Yeah, like it. Ready?
Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the board. I'm Amelia Brown with Tampa Bay Water, and I work with uh basically everyone here on water conservation throughout the year, and we're really grateful for the partnership of working together and the dedication that PASCO's shown to water conservation. Of course, it's really important during times of drought. But it's really a long-term strategy for the sustainability of our region and balancing our water supplies with water demands. We're grateful for the adoption of the proclamation and look forward
to the years ahead. Thank you.
Thank you.
Commissioner Oakley, you want to go for a picture?
I'd like to thank each and everyone for your part in conserving water. That's very, very important. Uh I've been a part of uh since two oh seven to two ten. I was uh past chair of of Swift Mud and been a part of that and uh continued being a part of conserving water in Pasco County for many many years and now I'm a past pres past chairman of Tampe Water and still on that board. But all the efforts done by
Pasco County, Pinellas County and Hillsburg County all work together to make sure we have water for each and every one of us and our citizens in these three counties. Um even when it's a dry season we still have water. I hate the fact that people say, Oh we're out of water, we're out of water and it it's real dry and it gets real low. But I'm telling you, it comes back very quickly, like the rain we got God sent us yesterday was very b much of a blessing to all of our
our counties and our citizens. And the fact of it is, people don't realize when you You change from a two day watering cycle to a one day because it's getting worse and it's drier. You're saving sixty million gallons a day. because of taking that one day off. That one day of war and off. Very, very important. But we still have many ways to provide water through DSAL and through the reservoir that we have that
holds 15 billion gallons of water. It's amazing that the three counties we use roughly 200 million gallons a day. Of it is we can put in in our system and into the reservoir to hold for the next day because we use 200 million, we can put 200 million back in that reservoir when we get the rainfall that we have yesterday and today that's coming. We
actually uh are going to be pulling that water and putting that reservoir and rebuilding the reservoir and also we provide water on out in the future. There's a lot of plans about water. that a lot of people don't understand because they think we're out of water at times. We're not out of water, but we're very cautious and very it's a very precious element that we need for life and we are going to make the best effort to make sure that's the right thing and to preserve that for all of all the citizens. So but
thank Thank you for each and every one to do that. Uh I'll go down and take a picture and if you all stay up here. Very good.
Yeah.
Keep me alive, I think.
Let's hope it keeps raining all day long.
I'm so nervous about slippery roads, right?
All right.