West Volusia comes together over water issues

BEACON PHOTO/PAT HATFIELD
Convocation — Mayors, city managers and staff from West Volusia cities and the County Council came together at a West Volusia Summit meeting in DeLand recently. Water issues are bringing local governments into working agreements on water supply.

BEACON PHOTO/PAT HATFIELD
Update — DeLand City Engineer Keith Riger updates the West Volusia Summit group on water supply and the future. He brought with him a draft of a memorandum of understanding, which city leaders will take back to their councils for signatures. The summit group will work together on supplying West Volusia's future water needs.

BEACON PHOTO/PAT HATFIELD
Studying the figures — County Council Member Andy Kelly looks over an information sheet at the West Volusia Summit on Jan. 23. He has been an advocate of basin boards. Now, the West Volusia Summit group is looking into the possibility with him.

Local governments signing memorandum of understanding

By Pat Hatfield
BEACON STAFF WRITER

posted Feb 4, 2010 - 3:51:54pm

The cost of alternative water sources such as desalinated water is bringing West Volusia players to the table to figure out strategies for paying for it and working cooperatively on conservation, reclaimed water interconnects and the like.

At a Jan. 23 West Volusia Summit,DeLand City Engineer Keith Riger presented attendees at the West Volusia Summit, including mayors or other officials from DeLand, Orange City, Lake Helen and DeBary, Deltona, city staff, County Council Members Andy Kelly and Pat Northey and others with a first draft of a memorandum of understanding to take back to their respective councils for approval.

There will be no costs to enter into the memorandum of understanding, he explained, but would unite them in a common purpose.

When it comes time to start paying the costs, new inter-local agreements will be needed.

Future cooperative efforts will include application for additional grants, construction of reclaimed-water interconnections, working as the "Volusia subgroup" with the St. Johns Water Management District, and developing a joint well-field management plan, as well as possible participation in the Coquina Coast project.

Also, discussion of returning to basin boards emerged during the meeting. A board would oversee the area around each basin, the low point in a watershed where water collects, creating rivers or lakes.

For example, there's the Blue Spring basin. The boards will protect the health of these basins, which protects the future water supply, and oversee water-management projects within their basins.

Council Member Andy Kelly advocated for basin boards in an interview with The Beacon in September 2007. Read more here.

Engineering and environmental studies on the desalination plant will continue through 2010, and in 2011, participants will decide exactly how big the plant needs to be, depending on the number of participants and future customers.

Riger said the memorandum of understanding should be signed in February, representatives appointed in March, then come together for the first working meeting in April.

DeLand Mayor Bob Apgar said that after the Water Authority of Volusia (WAV) collapsed, he got into discussions with several of his counterparts and discovered they wanted to work together in a less structured form than WAV, one that wouldn't rise to the level of a quasi-governmental agency.

The group wanted to pull in members from all of West Volusia, including the "non-suppliers," who purchase water from neighboring utilities.

"There's strength in numbers," he said.

City Council Member Jack Lenzen of DeBary said he wants his city to participate, and will request the support of the rest of the council.

DeLand City Commissioner Leigh Matusick said, "The water issues are everybody's issues." Sharing the costs will spread them thin.

Mayor Harley Strickland of Orange City said was ready to move ahead with the memorandum. The others agreed.

— pat@beacononlinenewscom

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