BARTOW | Officials in Polk and some surrounding counties are going to have to work together to find an additional 250 million gallons a day of fresh water to meet the next two decades’ projected demand, but it’s unclear what the sources will be, the County Commission was told Tuesday.
“We have to develop strategies that will not demand increased groundwater,” said Mark Hammond, director of the Southwest Florida Water Management District’s Resource Management Division.
Tentative information shows that the region, whose water consumption grew from 300 million gallons a day to 800 million gallons a day between 1960 and 2010, is at or near its capacity to tap the aquifer, he said.