Greg Veliz, executive director of the Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority, joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s going on with our water.
Does the recent rain affect the aqueduct authority?
Veliz said, “Well, a lot of times on the wastewater side, it affects, especially if we have heavy intrusion, then it gets into the system and it overwhelms the system. On the water side, it actually helps us, not so much when you get it quick like that and after such a sustained drought. But if we had more regular rain, people would curb their their irrigation, which is our biggest user of water and if we can somehow cut that back a little bit, that saves an immense amount of water.”
The aqueduct authority is quick to respond to any issues with water.
Veliz said, “It’s never ending. You never know when it’s going to happen. Number one, it always seems to happen at the most inopportune time. We were fighting weather, we knew the weather was rolling in, and we got an open hole that’s already full of water, and more water does not help at that point. So it unfolded to be more than we had anticipated, and we did end up losing Big Torch, Little Torch and probably parts of Big Pine. Follow us on Facebook. We get it out right away on social media. We also have our website, which if you see a problem, that’s the first place to go, because that’ll be the first place it is. And then we have an alert system, which we try to call everyone in the affected area. Sometimes we overlap, sometimes we fall a little bit short, depending on how, once you start blocking out those zones, but we try to get that out. People get upset if you call, so we try to send a text, and we’ve been working on that, especially after we had those leaks a couple of years ago.”
The water comes into the Keys in one big line, so that can definitely make issues tricky.
Veliz said, “You run into a lot of different problems. You have valves that while they’re exercised, the elements down here are just really, really hard between the chlorine that we use in our water to treat our water to make it down that 130 miles that it has to go, and all of those factors, it erodes some of those valves. So when you go to close a valve that might not have been completely closed to water for a number of years, if it fails, you have to drop back to the next valve, which now involves three valves, and every time you go out, it fans out, and becomes more and more problematic, and you lose more and more customers. Very fortunate, when you get both valves to close at both ends, that makes it a lot easier.”
With the state not having a completed budget, how does that affect the water?
Veliz said, “They’ve been very generous with us over the years, and you can tell that by the amount of work that you see going on. Obviously everyone sees the pipeline project, and that’s actually good for us, that’s where your dollars are going. That’s where the Tallahassee dollars are going. But then we also have the RO plants, which people tend not to see. At that point, when we had that break the other night, that RO plant was generating up to 4 million gallons of water a day, and that helps a lot when you’re creating that much water south of a break, that lends itself to making things easier on everyone.”
Replacing the pipeline is very needed.
Veliz said, “That’s one of our number one concerns. This pipeline thing is taking on a life of its own, and as long as we can keep it funded, it’s really, really expensive and at one session out, we’re not funded yet. So we’re beating the bushes for grants. We’re doing everything we can to keep this thing moving, because that’s how important we think it is. Every length of pipe that we put in there makes the water security down there a lot more secure. I can’t emphasize the importance of getting that replaced. Some people will say it’s overdue, and perhaps they’re right, but we’re going to try to make up time. It’s a great company. There’s a lot of good people. There’s a lot of people that want to move this project forward and get things done.”
For more information, click here: https://www.fkaa.com/