Tampa City Council is considering canceling a water reuse project after it was put on hold last year.
The Pure Project was considered to be an evolution of what people called "Toilet to Tap."
Community members and stakeholders voiced major concerns about the Pure Project. Ultimately, those concerns are what halted the funding. Now the city is looking for ways to move on from this project.
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“I think pure needs to be canceled as a project. I think we need to start with a new project that starts with what do need for water then looks at reclaim water as one of those solutions,” Nancy Stevens with the Sierra Group of Tampa Bay said.
Stakeholders are calling on the city to put the Pure Project behind us once and for all. This project was put in place to repurpose wastewater, which could go into the local aquifer, rivers, or even back into your drinking water.
“Without knowing what the contaminants are, you don’t know what that’s going to do to the wildlife in the river. It could kill the fish. It could kill the river,” Stevens said.
The stakeholders have several concerns, and just last week, they presented them to the city. This gave some city council members the understanding they need to consider pulling the plug.
City Councilor Lyn Hurtak said, “ It just clarified our opposition to continue to even think about putting wastewater into the aquifer. It's just something that nobody wants, and quite frankly, from what we were told, it's not needed.”
It's possible the city moves forward with canceling the Pure Project Thursday. However, Senate Bill 64calls on municipalities in Florida to find new uses for wastewater discharges that aren’t helpful for the environment. They have to do that by 2032.
Stevens said, “ I'd like to see the city start by looking at what water we need, what we can do with the current sources of water and find out ways to use those see if there's more conservation we can do to use less water.”
The city council will discuss this during their meeting Thursday morning at 9 a.m.
