Published: October 01, 2008 12:50 pm            

OUR VIEW - Oct. 1

Water warriors won't give up

A bad idea from five years back resurfaced at an Orlando water conference last week and was once again given the boot - for the moment.

Remember 2003? The Council of 100, a group of Florida business leaders, told then-Gov. Jeb Bush he ought to create a water commission with the power to package up our most precious resource and send it wherever in the state it's most needed. That would've meant piping our water down south, to the ever-arid region below the I-4 corridor. The idea was shelved for fear that war might erupt.

At the Florida Water Congress in Orlando on Sept. 25-26 the plan got a new hearing. This time, a group of builders, bureaucrats, lawyers and lobbyists called for the creation of a statewide czar with the power to take from the rich and give to the poor, water-wise.

This scheme was shelved for fear that now wasn't a good time to ask legislators to fund a massive new bureaucracy. However, as a Tampa Tribune editorialist observed Saturday (www2.tbo.com/content/2008/sep/27/na-defeat-not-likely-to-put-stake-in-scheme-for-st/news-opinion-editorials), the folks who hatched this plot aren't likely gone for good.

South Florida almost certainly sees us as their ace in the hole. As long as we have water they want, don't count on their looking for long-term solutions to their own problems. One day, when things get bad enough, they figure they'll just lean on the legislature to repeal the 1998 "local sources first" law that requires them to exhaust all nearby sources of water before turning their gaze upstate.

Be ready, folks.

        

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