x
Breaking News
More () »

Why are people in St. Petersburg watering their lawns with drinking water?

St. Petersburg prides itself on being a green city, but some who live in St. Pete are finding themselves wasting drinking water in order to save money.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- Saint Petersburg prides itself on being a green city, but some who live in St. Pete are finding themselves wasting drinking water in order to save money.

Shore Acres is one of the city’s neighborhoods with access to St. Pete’s reclaimed wastewater for residential irrigation. It was an innovative solution when it was implemented almost 40 years ago.

“It was historic. In fact, St. Petersburg was the city in the United States to use reclaimed water for private irrigation,” said St. Petersburg City Councilman Charlie Gerdes. “It was a very innovative sustainability idea back in the eighties when it originally got done.”

A sign at the entrance to Shore Acres reads: "St. Petersburg Conserving Florida's Water Resources Since 1977 -- This Neighborhood Irrigating with Reclaimed Water."

But, that's not happening nearly as much these days because the cost of reclaimed water went up by more than 25 percent last year.

“Several people in the community have shut off their reclaimed water or, in the first place even before these rate hikes, were saying it was too expensive,” said David Delrahim, president of the Shore Acres Civic Association. “The biggest concern about reclaimed water is the price right now. Last year it went up about 25-and-a-half percent. This year, it’s expected to go up over 10 percent, and the price is just too high for the water that we’re being provided.”

Reclaimed water is basically wastewater that's been converted for certain types of reuse. You don't want to drink it, but it's totally fine for watering your lawn.

So why the huge rate hike?

According to Gerdes, it's because reclaimed water isn't available to everyone in the city, so it's partly a fairness issue. Oh, and there's also that $300 million wastewater improvement project that the city needs to pay for.

“Our review of the system is intended to look at fairness not prosperous versus not prosperous, rich versus poor, entitled versus not entitled. That’s not what it’s about,” said Gerdes. “Everybody pays for the generation of reclaimed water because reclaimed water is just a product of our wastewater system. So, everybody that pays for wastewater is paying to get this reclaimed water, but the reclaimed water available for irrigation is not available to everyone.”

“It’s really difficult to call ourselves a green city when we’re charging more for our reclaimed water system,” added Delrahim. “It really should be less and people should be incentivized to use reclaimed water as the most environmentally sound way to dispose of our wastewater.”

►Make it easy to keep up-to-date with more stories like this. Download the 10News app now.

Have a news tip? Email desk@wtsp.com, or visit our Facebook page or Twitter feed.

Before You Leave, Check This Out