County Wants to Take Water From Local Lakes!

There is a plan that could have a devastating impact on our local water resources. There is a proposal to remove 7 MILLION gallons of our lake water PER DAY when the lake water is above a certain level. The plan is to set up 2 huge underground storage areas in the aquifer. The first location is just before the canal between Lake Mary Jane and Lake Hart. When water levels are above a certain height - they will skim up to 2 MILLION GALLONS per DAY at this site. The next site is at the man made canal / weir just after water flows out of Lake Hart towards the Kissimmee River basin. At this location they want to set up 5 underground storage areas in the aquifer and want to draw out 5 MILLION GALLONS per DAY when the water level is high enough. This plan will certainly change the health of our lakes, possibly our wells and the aquifer, and also damage the efforts to restore the Kissimmee River Basin! All this being done to exclusively meet the demands of future residents and water lawns! (Did you know that over 50% of the county's drinking water is used to water lawns?) In addition, we have found out the Orlando Utilities Commission has plans to possibly expand the Curtis Stanton Coal-fired power plant to meet the needs of future residents and wants to use water from our lakes to provide the additional 4 - 6 million gallons of cooling water PER DAY.                              

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Letter to Mayor from LMJA:

Dear Mayor Crotty and Orange County Commissioners,

The Lake Mary Jane Alliance is a large and active neighborhood group made up of over 800 plus property owners in the Lakes Mary Jane/Hart/Whippoorwill area. Our mission and continuing critical interest is protection of the area’s rural lifestyle, the health of our lakes, the viability of our individual well water supplies, the maintenance of our still relatively pristine environment and avoiding any locally caused impacts on the broader Central Florida region. Achieving these objectives requires not only a broad understanding of the region, but also requires a long nurtured and detailed understanding of the local district and its environment. In this, we are fortunate that Commissioner Stewart has strongly supported our objectives and taken the time to understand our local, almost street by street, issues.

Water issues are one of the most pressing issues facing our local district, the county and the whole region. We are strongly opposed to skimming of local lakes, believing this will be detrimental to the heath of the lakes and the Kissimmee River Basin. We feel removing water from Lake Mary Jane & Lake Hart is just a cheap and easy solution to a much larger long term problem. In spite of our best efforts, our questions have largely gone unanswered and ignored by Orange County Utilities except for arm waving generalities. We support the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) in their denial of lake skimming permits and were disappointed by the BCC’s decision to approve spending over $1 M of taxpayer’s money to mount a legal fight. We object to the sacrifice of our water to provide for future development and electrical generation cooling towers, believing that future development should solve its own problems, not to the detriment of current residents. We decry the lack of opportunity for public input to water supply management and virtually irrevocable damaging decisions. We believe that much more emphasis needs to be put on mandatory conservation efforts along with Governor Crist’s broader conservation initiatives.

In recognition of the above critical situation, and the proposals to potentially sacrifice the health of our local lakes to the water skimming gods, we strongly disagree with your appointing the District 5 Commissioner to represent the county in negotiations with SFWMD. While recognizing his past experience, we believe these negotiations require detailed knowledge of the local district area and demonstrated concern for the environment. Further, we believe that the Commissioner elected to serve this district should be the Commissioner to represent us on this extremely important issue.

We urge you to reconsider your 15 May 2008 memo and allow Commissioner Stewart to represent our district in these critical negotiations.

Sincerely,

Pete Betterman