ZEPHYRHILLS, Fla. — As cities like Tampa and St. Petersburg grow more and more expensive, areas like Zephyrhills in Pasco County are experiencing rapid growth in population – and that comes with growing pains.
Earlier this year, Zephyrhills applied to the state for permission to pump more groundwater as leaders realized the city was nearing its pumping limits.
Now, the city will discuss adding new impact fees and reducing its density levels to manage growth and keep water use in check.
"We permitted 14 units per acre, and we changed a couple of years ago to 20 units per acre,” City Councilman Steve Spina said. “So, we're looking at how to deal with that. Maybe roll back to the 14 units and just kind of apply a smaller growth pattern."
Fewer units would ideally mean less water use throughout the city.
"One of the main problems we have is we're reaching the limits of our water use permit that we get through the Southwest Florida Water Management District,” Spina said.
The Southwest Florida Water Management District handles water permitting across our area, and right now, Zephyrhills has a permit to pump 3.3 million gallons of groundwater a day. The city currently averages 2.8 million gallons a day.
"A few times we had picked up to about 3,000,000 gallons a day. So, we're right at the top of our limit,” Spina said.
The city’s application to SWFWMD asks for permission to pump 4.1 million gallons per day.
"When we issue a permit, we have to certify that it meets our conditions for issuance,” SWFWMD Regulation Division Director Michelle Hopkins said. “So, in the case of Zephyrhills, we needed some more information about some of the modeling and some of the growth projections."
SWFWMD also has to make sure drawing more groundwater won't cause adverse impacts to the environment.
"You could draw too much water down to the point where it might cause water levels in wetlands or [minimum flows and levels] to be lower than they should be for the health of that system,” Hopkins said. "You could cause harm to an existing well by drawing the water level down to where it might not be functional."
It's a general concern environmentalists like Bob Knight of the Florida Springs Institute.
"There's over a billion gallons a day of groundwater pumping in the Tampa area and Polk County area,” Knight said.
He adds that too much pumping has negative impacts on the aquifer, Florida’s freshwater springs and their ecosystems.
"We're all pulling from the same bucket of water, if you will. It's a giant bucket of water. It's got trillions of gallons in it. But it's not so big that we can't pollute it and deplete it. And that's what we're doing” he said. “We're pumping roughly in Florida, almost three billion gallons a day of this groundwater that would have come out of the springs is now coming out of wells."
SWFWMD says Zephyrhills' nearby Crystal Springs is not in danger, and it wouldn't issue a pumping permit that would cause problems. But as for the city and its growing pains, leaders are still working them through while also considering more impact fees on new development.
"A lot of the new development was coming up faster than we had anticipated,” said Spina, who already proposed a development moratorium this year to help reign in water use.
"When you add new development, you have to add police department, you have to add parks, you have to improve roads. So those are the areas where we will increase our impact fees so that the new people coming in will pay.
Call it the price of popularity in one of the fastest-growing states in the nation.
"These are not a Zephyrhills issue,” Spina said. “They're a Florida issue."
Emerald Morrow is an investigative reporter with 10 Tampa Bay. Like her on Facebook and follow her on X. You can also email her at emorrow@10tampabay.com.