As required by its governing documents, Tampa Bay Water updates its Long-term Master Water Plan every five years, looking at a 20-year horizon for water supply and demand. This thorough process identifies when new supplies need to be built, considering demand forecasts, water shortage mitigation strategies and demand management, and what potential supply projects could be. For each plan, hundreds of project options are whittled down using a coarse screening process before being pared further to a short list of projects. This short list is presented to the board of directors who selects a project or projects for more detailed feasibility studies.
Tampa Bay Water consultants and staff are currently reviewing projects for the 2023 Long-term Master Water Plan update and have narrowed 121 options down to about 50 options in coarse screening using the same evaluation criteria — environmental stewardship, cost and reliability — used in all long-term planning. Coarse screening yielded project concepts that have geographic and source diversity:
These 50 options were combined into 16 concepts that will now go through a fine screening process to further narrow the list of viable options. Tampa Bay Water will present a shortlist of top projects for board approval for feasibility studies in late 2023. Learn more at tampabaywater.org/future-drinking-water-sources.
