Heat wave reminds us to protect South Florida’s water supply

By Ryan Rossi, South Florida Water Coalition

As our climate rapidly changes, South Florida has endured severe weather events in recent years. Growing in intensity, a “wet” year turns ordinary spring storms into tropical events and a “dry” year brings drought conditions and soaring temperatures that leave the public praying for rain.

Unfortunately, this is a pattern that is unlikely to change for South Floridians, which makes strategies to keep residents — and their natural resources — protected and safe all the more critical.

Take our water supply as one important example.

Many of us often take water supply for granted. Unfortunately, our water is not an infinite resource, and managing our water is often a challenging affair. During drier months, droughts create the need for water restrictions placed on millions of residents and businesses, leaving local utilities burdened with the task of protecting available water if a shortage develops.

Over the years, droughts in South Florida have been common: Severe droughts nearly crippled the water supply for the city of West Palm Beach in 2008 and again in 2011. In 2011, Palm Beach County officials asked restaurants to only serve water upon request and condo and homeowners’ associations to not run water in fountains. More recently, in 2022, a water shortage developed from a rainless summer until a late-season hurricane dumped months of rain in a matter of days — along with billions of dollars in damage, and tragic losses of life.

The reality is, we know we’re going to have periodic droughts. This month, nearly 14% of Florida, including parts of Palm Beach County, are experiencing “D1-Moderate Drought” conditions. A brutally hot and dry summer holds the potential for water shortage conditions, and hoping for rain without tragedy.

Smart water management policies can help us better navigate drought-like conditions for the benefit of residents and our natural environment. We must reexamine long-standing and functional policies that have suddenly disappeared over the last several years. Reimplementing legal protections for South Florida water users — especially for cities like West Palm Beach — is not only sensible, it’s the right thing to do for millions of residents.

Effective strategies to protect and better manage our water must be considered when planning for the decades to come. For example, if today’s moderate drought grows in severity, residents who depend on Lake Okeechobee as a backup water supply resource may not have water previously guaranteed and available to them.

We also need to consider functional management strategies for the water we have today. Efforts to defend in court existing federal law — known as the “savings clause” — that creates certainty for our municipal water supply, should be applauded. It has been sensible policy for decades and should remain so for the benefit of our communities.

According to Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Florida’s water supply “is projected to be unable to meet all of the growing needs of Floridians in the future.” An increasing population, outdated infrastructure and severe weather from a warming climate are the perfect formula for a crippling water supply crisis in the making. To avoid worst-case scenarios, it will take cooperation, responsible policymaking and the understanding that protecting the availability of our water is protection for us all.

Certainly, we can all agree that waiting for a catastrophic tropical event to cure water shortage conditions isn’t a sensible water supply policy. Protecting the water we have, is.

Ryan Rossi is the director of the South Florida Water Coalition. He lives in Boca Raton. This opinion piece was originally published by the Sun Sentinel, which is a media partner of The Invading Sea. 

If you are interested in submitting an opinion piece to The Invading Sea, email Editor Nathan Crabbe at ncrabbe@fau.edu. Sign up for The Invading Sea newsletter by visiting here.