Peace River water reserves drop to 8 months after dry weather

ARCADIA, Fla. (WINK) — One of Southwest Florida's main drinking water systems is feeling the heat, or more accurately, the lack of rain.

The Peace River Manasota Regional Water Supply Authority supplies water to Sarasota, DeSoto, North Port and about 95% of Charlotte County. After months of dry weather, the Peace River is running so low that they can't always pull water from it.

WINK News visited the facility to see how they're living off the "rainy day fund." Katie Gilmore, director of operations for Peace River Manasota, explained the process.

"We take the water from the Peace River, and we store it in our reservoir system. We can hold about six and a half billion gallons of water in storage," Gilmore said.

From there, it gets cleaned up. Gilmore said they can treat up to 51 million gallons per day of water, then it goes out to the various customers in the different counties and cities.

Last rainy season in Florida was dry, so the water flows in the Peace River are well below normal. This leaves officials like Peace River Manasota to dig deeper into their reserves.

"When there's no rain, there's less flow," Gilmore said. "Since November, flows have been so low that we have not been able to take water from the river."

A few quick windows of rain helped in March and April, but not enough, even with emergency orders allowing limited extra pumping. Gilmore said those flows are even too low for that emergency order, so they're not taking any water off the river.

"We've been relying on our stored water in our reservoir system," Gilmore said.

That storage is dwindling. Gilmore said right now they are about 7.5 to 8.5 months.

Glenn Compton, chairman of environmental non-profit Manasota-88, can't help but be concerned. He said the Peace River has been severely stressed in the past.

"To allow for an increase in withdrawal will probably magnify the impact that it'll have on the river's resources," Compton said.

He says pressure is everywhere—development, agriculture and growth. Compton said it's a finite resource, and we need to treat it as such.

"Until we get better water restrictions and local governments start to realize that you have to tie in water supply with growth management, we're going to continue to see these problems in the future," Compton said.

Gilmore says don't panic just yet. She said they're not worried about the water supply; they do have enough, they have their plans, and they have their storage.

Now that we are in the rainy season, the water flow in the Peace River should recover. When it does, Peace River Manasota can pump up to 120 million gallons of water every day.

Peace River Manasota says in the next three to four years, they're planning to add another 9 billion-gallon reservoir to help keep up with growth and the next drought.