Good Morning Florida Keys

From today’s Citizens’ Voice: “On the front page of the paper Friday there’s an article about how this is the driest season we’ve had since 1932, yet the city of Key West keeps given out permits to build condos, while citizens like myself are being told to conserve. Doest it make sense to keep building when there isn’t enough water for the people already here?”
 
As chance would have it, last Friday I lunched with a group of men, some of whom are pretty well known in Key West. One of them described a new car wash/detail shop in town, which he said did great work at super prices. When I asked where they got their water?, the promoter said out of a water faucet. When I asked if they recycled the used water?, he said no. His mood, and the mood at the table, seemed less than warm toward my implication that maybe the new car wash/detail shop wasn’t all that great a thing for Key West. Or for the Keys.
 
I had read that morning’s article in the Citizen. I had read that the mainland aquifer Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority draws its water from now is at risk to saline infiltration. I had read of the old diesel-powered desalination plants the Aqueduct Authority has in the Keys being fired back up, and of a new desalination plant in Florida City coming online. I had read the prediction that the next world war will be over water.
 
I wondered what the fellow who had promoted the new car wash/detail business was thinking? I wondered why the group of men had not asked the same questions I had asked? I wondered bicycling back to my flat after lunch why it wasn’t raining enough? I felt bad every time I watered my garden, which I had built over rough land and a parking lot around where I live. Twice a week, at most, I watered it with a hose and nozzle attachment, but I wished it would rain. Then some rain came and I didn’t have to water my garden again, yet.
 
Perhaps it’s because I gave up getting my car washed and now wait on a good rain storm to do it for me. Perhaps it’s because of my age (66). Perhaps it’s because I remember back to before the present water pipe from the mainland to Key West was installed. Perhaps it’s because I remember when the old, much smaller water pipe was all we had coming down from the mainland. Perhaps it’s because I remember when there was no new residential, office or any other kind of construction in the Keys, because nobody could get a permit to tap onto the existing waterline.
 
Whatever the cause, I really do feel the person who wrote into Citizens’ Voice about conserving water was dead on the money. And I really do feel we, Key West and the Keys, need to stop issuing new building permits until the water shortage is solved permanently. What could be more green than that? There’s nothing green about using huge amounts of diesel fuel to run obsolete desalination plants. There’s nothing green about pumping the mainland aquifers down so low that salt water infiltrates. There’s nothing green about building new residences in the Keys, when real estate “For Sale” signs litter every street.
 
We have thousands of houses, condos and townhouses for sale in the Keys. What are we thinking, building one new residence? What are we thinking? Why aren’t we thinking about recycling our treated wastewater? Why aren’t we using recycled water to wash our cars, water our gardens? Why aren’t we treating our wastewater enough to even drink it? Why aren’t we building water tanks to store it? Why are we pumping it into deep wells?
 
Someone told me the other day that once upon a time Keys property owners who had cisterns were “encouraged” to discontinue using them and to connect with the Aqueduct Authority. I said, yeah, so the Aqueduct Authority could make more money. So developers could have more waterlines, to build more houses, condos, townhouses, office and other buildings. Well, it does sort of look like the chickens have come home to roost, doesn’t it?
 
I don’t suppose I have to tell you how I will vote on applications for new construction that come before the Key West City Commission, if you elect me as your mayor. I don’t suppose I have to tell you how I will try to deal with car washes (commercial and front yard).
 
The first thing we need to do to really start going green, is to stop using Aqueduct water we don’t really need to use. The second thing we need to do is to start recycling our treated wastewater. We really need to do this, before we don’t have wastewater to recycle and only people with cisterns are getting by.
 
The cheapest and probably the only practical way to recycle our treated wastewater is to upgrade our present water treatment plants, so the water that comes out of them can be put right back into the Aqueduct.
 
Yes, there will be chemical byproducts from the enhanced treatment process. Yes, those chemical byproducts will have to be disposed of somewhere.
 
Key West pays Waste Management to truck all of its garbage and refuse to mainland landfills, which provide habitats for wildlife, Waste Management advertises on the side of some of its trucks. Key West can pay Waste Management to dispose of the chemical byproducts of enhanced wastewater treatment.
 
If you detect some irony, it is intended. Short of someone inventing a practical, economical, non-polluting way to make energy out of seawater, short of someone inventing a cheap way to burn garbage and refuse down to non-toxic wastes, there is no way for human beings to live in the Keys and not hurt Mother Nature. There is no way. But there are ways we can reduce the amount of hurt.
 
Sloan for mayor, political advertisement, approved and paid for by Sloan Bashinsky