Aquifer Storage

By Debbie Salamone
Sentinel Staff Writer

September 22, 2002

David Pyne believes he has a way to save water-hungry Florida from its own excesses.

The concept seems simple: Capture extra rain during summer storms and store it underground to use later when the weather dries. Most of the water from above-normal rains drenching Central Florida this summer will quickly evaporate or rush out to sea. Pyne, a Gainesville civil engineer, has successfully pushed the idea that some of that water could be saved and sent to homes and businesses during the dry winter months, or in future droughts.

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It's a tempting rescue plan for a dwindling aquifer strained by relentless population growth and typically replenished by only 1 to 12 inches of the 50 inches of rainfall in a given year. Many state water managers and utilities have already put Pyne's plan into action, and they are betting that expanding the idea is key to shaping Florida's water future.

But what seems like a simple solution to Pyne and his supporters has grown into one of Florida's most heated environmental battles.

Environmental lawyer Suzi Ruhl is leading the fight against Pyne. She has accused him and other researchers of trying to find shortcuts to make the water-storage idea as cheap and politically attractive as possible. As a result, she fears that dangerous pollutants could be dumped underground with the rainwater and poison the pristine aquifer.

Today, chapter 10 of the Orlando Sentinel's yearlong series on Florida's water crisis examines the controversial issue through the eyes of the two people who are the most visible protagonists in this statewide scientific debate.

The battle of Ruhl vs. Pyne is now being fought in science labs across the state and will quickly spill into public hearings where decisions are made about water. Florida's future water plans, billions of dollars and the health of the environment hinge on the outcome of the struggle that Ruhl and Pyne embody. Judges or Florida lawmakers ultimately may settle their fight, which could last years as scientists try to answer nagging questions about the technology.

Idea is 'too practical'

In the late 1960s, Pyne was an upstart college kid who fancied himself as a guy who could think outside the box. He already had a civil-engineering degree from Duke University and a master's in environmental engineering from the University of Florida when he approached his doctoral committee with a dissertation idea -- use salty parts of the aquifer like a water tank.

The aquifer is a maze of sands, limestone and crevices that can hold vast amounts of water. But relatively little of the rain that falls over Florida soaks into the ground to replenish supplies. Anywhere from 75 percent to 95 percent evaporates or races off pavement and through canals, into rivers and out to sea.

Pyne argued that some of that water could be forced underground where it would naturally stay together in a giant bubble.

Pyne said the doctoral committee rejected his idea, which he later named Aquifer Storage Recovery, as "too practical." So he quit the school.

A third-generation civil engineer, Pyne joined a Gainesville consulting engineering firm, and by 1983, the first modern-day aquifer-storage facility began operating in Manatee County to capture excess water from the Manatee River.

"I knew it was going to work, but everyone else thought it was crazy as hell," he said.

The project won Pyne and his team a prestigious national engineering award. And with that formal recognition, aquifer storage caught on.

Today, there are 57 aquifer-storage systems nationwide and 11 in Florida. Pyne, 56, has traveled around the world to promote the technique, written the authoritative book on the subject and started his own consulting firm.

But it is the evolution of aquifer storage that has grown controversial.

To date, most aquifer-storage systems in the United States inject fully treated drinking water so pollutants aren't carried underground. But Pyne and other scientists now want to take the next step -- relying on the natural cleansing ability of the aquifer's sediments to kill off bacteria, protozoa and viruses. They say water stored underground does not really need the total disinfection it gets now -- only treatment to remove basic pollutants, such as pesticides.

Cutting back on treatment would make aquifer storage a cheaper, more practical way to capture more water for a burgeoning population, and it would shave up to $400 million off the $8 billion price tag of Everglades restoration. Replumbing the Everglades hinges on 333 aquifer-storage wells to catch water that currently is drained away in canals and other man-made waterworks.

Last year, water managers, utilities and the state Department of Environmental Protection pushed legislation to allow the idea of storing tainted water underground.

That's when Suzi Ruhl grew into Pyne's greatest nemesis.

Fighting for nature

Ruhl, 46, still remembers the polluted creek near her childhood home in Maryland.

"I remember at that time wondering if there would be birds when I grew up," she said.

When she revisited her former neighborhood a decade later, the creek was cleaned up.

"That gave me the confidence and commitment to work to change things."

Change started in the basement of her Alabama home 23 years ago, when she was fresh out of law school and founded the Legal Environmental Assistance Foundation. Almost immediately, Ruhl, who has an environmental-law degree and a master's degree in public health with a specialty in epidemiology, focused her attention underground. She found that governments and industries injected sewage effluent, hazardous substances and other wastes deep underground to get rid of them. Ruhl found that the process polluted drinking-water sources.

Her legal actions in several states and in federal proceedings forced changes in the practice. In 1983, she moved to Tallahassee and her foundation eventually grew into one of Florida's most successful environmental nonprofit groups.

Today, Ruhl sees similarities between the dangers of waste-injection wells and new ideas for aquifer storage and recovery.

"We're talking about a whole slew of contaminants that's going into what's considered a pristine water source," she said.

When the aquifer-storage proposal came up in Tallahassee during the 2001 legislative session, Ruhl accused proponents of recklessly endangering Florida's water supply without proof that dangerous microorganisms would become harmless or die once inside the dark, oxygen-starved aquifer.

"There was no science to support what they wanted to do," said Harold Wanless, head of the geology department at the University of Miami.

Ruhl and other environmental groups took their fight to the public. Legislators were inundated with thousands of e-mails, letters and calls. The measure died.

"It was the voice of the people rising up and saying this is crazy," Ruhl concluded.

But Ruhl's victory didn't settle the matter for good. It only bought time.

Battle will resume

State water managers have hired scientists and other experts, including Pyne, to continue studying whether partially treated water can be stored safely in the aquifer for later use.

The managers could eventually ask state lawmakers for permission to conduct tests in actual aquifer-storage wells. If those experiments prove the technique is safe, the managers, utilities or environmental regulators could propose legislation allowing the process. In the meantime, some battles over the storage ideas may be decided in administrative courts as individual projects are proposed.

The experiments will provide evidence for lawmakers and judges to make their decisions.

"We have to watch them," Ruhl said. "We have to make sure they're looking at the right questions."

Those questions are numerous.

First, will the water stay contained in a bubble and not move into other parts of the aquifer? And if it moves, would potentially harmful organisms from the injected water be transported through the aquifer and possibly infect drinking supplies?

Pyne said water has remained in the bubble in nearly all storage wells in Florida so far.

But critics remain skeptical and point to Miami-Dade County, where sewage effluent discarded underground through waste-injection wells is now moving unexpectedly upward through the aquifer. So far, it has not gotten close to drinking wells, according to environmental regulators. Aquifer-storage proponents say their wells will be designed differently from injection wells, so the comparison isn't fair.

Even if some of the stored water moves through the aquifer, some scientists suspect it's not a problem. Early tests indicate 90 percent of the bacteria and viruses die within a week, said Joan Rose, the state's hired expert on water microbiology and a professor at the University of South Florida.

"That's not their natural habitat, so they do have a finite life," Rose said.

But because minute amounts of microorganisms can make people sick, scientists must find out how long it takes for all of them to die and whether they would live long enough to have time to move toward drinking wells.

Rose's staff is focusing on hardy organisms that can get into the aquifer with soils, and human and animal wastes. Some can make people sick, such as E. coli, cryptosporidium and hepatitis A. But Ruhl worries that the state-financed tests won't go far enough. Failing to fully treat water could put organisms and diseases underground that scientists aren't even aware of yet, she said.

And aside from the organisms, there are some worries that the slightly acidic waters from the surface that are placed into the aquifer could interact with the limestone and release harmful substances such as arsenic.

There also are concerns that toxic algae or traces of pharmaceutical drugs that are found in rivers will be transferred deep into the aquifer and infiltrate drinking supplies.

While the unknowns strike fear in Ruhl's heart, Pyne is undaunted.

In Australia, he said, storm water, treated wastewater and partially treated surface water have been used in aquifer-storage wells since the early 1990s with no ill effects reported.

In Florida, surface waters regularly flush into the aquifer through sinkholes -- water that's more polluted than what would go down any storage wells. And for decades in Central Florida, 400 drainage wells have allowed storm water to flush off streets and through lakes into the aquifer. So far, contaminants haven't poisoned major drinking-water supplies, although some experts fear the wells are dangerous.

But proving the science behind aquifer storage is now only half of the fight. The other half is public relations.

Convincing the public

Pyne and others think Ruhl's public battle against storing partially treated water in early 2001 has turned popular sentiment against all forms of the technology.

As water managers try to get permits from environmental regulators for individual wells, public opposition could stand in their way.

"It's taken such a bad hit in the media we're concerned whether the technology is acceptable to the public," said Peter Kwiatkowski, the South Florida Water Management District's aquifer-storage expert. "We need to have the public support."

Besides aiding Everglades restoration, the underground-storage technique could help expand water supplies by warehousing treated wastewater that is used for irrigation. It also is key to tapping the St. Johns River as a new water source in Central Florida. Because the river typically flows high for about half of the year, the water must be captured at that time and stored for later use.

"The fallout of the misinformation basically threatens to deprive the people of Florida of a viable, cost-effective solution to many of our water-supply issues," Pyne said.

As Pyne pushes for tests with partially treated water in actual aquifer-storage wells, Ruhl is pushing back. She wants lab tests done first to ensure there is no risk to the environment.

"She takes the what-if-the-worst-case scenario," Pyne said. "She effectively uses fear to generate an emotional response."

"I laugh when they say I use scare tactics," Ruhl responds. "I use their own testimony and evidence."

To her critics, Ruhl is a misguided activist whose visibility during the aquifer-storage legislative battle helped raise money for her organization. To his critics, Pyne is an overly enthusiastic proponent of a technology that could bring work and profit to his new consulting firm.

But Ruhl and Pyne both see their own motives as noble. They are convinced their cause is right. Yet each admires the tenacity of the opponent.

As they left a public meeting about aquifer storage last month, Pyne made a suggestion: "Suzi, some day we're going to have to go out, have a beer and let it all out."

She didn't directly answer.

Later in private, she says: "Too often environmental advocates lose sight of the goal and make a deal. I'm not going to cross the line and go out drinking with anyone. I'm not going to cross the line and risk having my goals shift."

But as Ruhl and Pyne dig in for a protracted fight, Florida's water woes only grow worse. There may be too little time to find a risk-free way of providing enough water for everyone.

Debbie Salamone can be reached at dsalamone@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5456.