Published: November 05, 2009 05:45 pm      

OUR VIEW: The lure of easy water

Face it, we're never going to be free of the threat to our water supply posed by South Florida developers and politicians.

The Florida Senate got into the act a few weeks ago, issuing an interim report that resurrects a wrong-headed idea from 2003: the creation of a statewide water panel with power to send the precious resource from one part of the state to another, depending on where it's "needed."

That idea echoes the thinking of the Council of 100, a powerful Tampa-based business group that published a report to that effect in 2003, and has since issued an updated draft just to make clear they aren't giving up.

We can fight them off for a while, but what we really fear is this. South Florida politicians see the Suwannee as their ace in the hole, and have for some time. They may not win this round of the water wars, but in their minds, when things get bad enough - when the state's economy might otherwise begin to crumble - we'll give up our water, and willingly.

We'll see about that.

In the meantime, let's hope the conservation bug bites our brothers and sisters to the south. Something's got to give somewhere. And stranger things have happened.