How will we fight the drought? Share your tips

We're in the third year of a drought and Tampa Bay's biggest reservoir is running low on water. So local officials asked the state water managers to crack down.

Boy, did they. On Tuesday, they ordered restaurants not to serve glasses of water except on request.

Tampabay.com readers offered some of their suggestions:

"We need a building moratorium," Pops wrote.

"Get rid of St Augustine grass and prohibit lawn water," Don writes.

BG says: "Find new ways to do things-ways that don't require so much water. Has anyone come up with a way to clean houses other than pressure washing? If not there is an opportunity for someone to do the research and come up with a business solution.

Reggies says: "Dine at home and save the hassle from salmonella and E. coli factories peppering the land."

Pepper writes: " Watering of lawns should be cut back to once every two weeks if allowed at all." Got ideas for fighting the drought? Share them here.

Comments

[Elaine]

Why not take some of the water from flood prone areas, pump it into trucks and bring it to FL drought areas and put it into the holding pond areas.

[Brian]

Every new house has an automatic watering system that swiftmud can program from the street remotely. Say once per month. It shall include a device to measure the amount of moisture in the ground at several places before it decides to turn the sprinklers on or not.

Just like car washes...all new Vets that provide grooming of animals ...they have to provide recycled water services.

[D]

Make HOA rules that require minimum grass coverage and the use of St. Augustine grass illegal. Do not approve any new development permits that don't include xeriscaping as the sole landscaping.

[Karl]

Shower with a friend, only drink vodka, send those strip-mining phosphate giants a very large water bill.

[Brian]

More effective watering of agricultural lands. Working with farmers to introduce more recycled water for their use.

[Mike Ahern]

If Swiftmud is really interested in saving water at restaurants, you would look into the Florida ice cream store rules. It is a requirement that ice cream scoops be kept under running water at all times during the day. I'm sure this rule wastes 100 times more water than serving a limited number of 12oz glasses of water to patrons. Check the Florida DBPR and under the Florida Food Code for this rule. If it were eliminated, I can't even fathom how much water could be saved.

[Brian]

Get rid of all the squirrels. Say there are 100 million in the state. They each drink a gallon a day. Think of all the water we can save.

[fredrock]

Ban lawn watering! I'm tired of lowered water levels causing sink holes and increasing insurance rates. 70% of our water on the frigging grass! You're kidding me right. There is no issue, no problem, just kill St. Augustine.
(Sorry Lord)

[Brian]

Shower once a week and no baths!!

A drought is a natural and cyclical occurrence relative to a given amount of rainfall in a given geographical location. They have occurred since the beginning of time. This isn’t the first one and it wont is the last. Some locations are more prone than others.

When you develop an area that has no sustainable means or access to potable water, and cyclical droughts occur, the pragmatic answer would be to stop developing in that area and conserve the resource during periods of drought.

That’s a fat chance in Florida where developers own the politicians.

11:37..are you saying there is no drought?

We fight the drought by directing SWFWMD and TBW to stop spinning the low reservoir level as a water shortage. Tell taxpayers the truth.

To wit: A non-compete contract to a political buddy to build the thing led to cost cutting (profit increasing) moves and poor workmanship. The thing leaks like a sieve and you can’t raise the level due to the potential for a breach, which would definitely lead to an investigation of the contractor and how they came about securing the contract.