Portions of message from Elaine Renick,
         City of Clermont Councilwoman and
         LCCC member

...”This e-mail is just info that I recently learned and thought you would like to know. As many of you know, I thought it would be a good idea for Clermont to have a liaison to the St. Johns River Water Management District, so I asked to be appointed as such. Well, I have learned so much from my meetings with the St. Johns, and I wanted to share the info with you as well. I have to warn you, though, that it is not good news; so I am going to beg you not to “shoot the messenger”!

“1. For starters, the city of Clermont is in violation of their consumptive use permit.  They are operating under a temporary permit right now. What that means is that we are using more water than the St. Johns says we can.  In fact, we are way over our allocation.  We were allocated 703.7 million gallons.  Our actual water use in 2000 was 1555.6 million gallons! The St. Johns is going to expect us to make some serious changes in our water use in the future.

“2. More bad news… After instituting the restrictions on landscape irrigation to reduce our water use, our overall consumption actually went UP!  People used more water when they were supposed to use less.  I don’t get it.

“3. That brings me to the next bit of bad news.  Since people used more water, their bills are going to soar!!! We had to institute the new water rate schedule to satisfy the St. Johns. (Remember, we are in violation of our CUP.)  I told people not to worry about it because I didn’t think it would affect them. I honestly thought everyone would cut back on their water use.  I was wrong!  Some people are going to have some hefty bills.

“4. This is probably the worst news! According to the St. Johns, south Lake County has some of the most serious problems in their whole 19 county district.  They are going to be doing an environmental assessment of the area to see if we are in danger of doing irreparable harm to our environment.  They look at the impact to wetlands, springs, and lake levels.  We know how dry our wetlands are. The flow at Apopka Springs is seriously reduced. And I don’t have to tell you that our lake levels are at an all time low!  It remains to be seen how well these areas can recover. Many people don’t realize how closely connected our lake levels are to our aquifer.  As the aquifer goes down, it pulls from the lakes.  When a well goes dry, some people may not be worried about drinking water because they figure they can  afford the extra piping to get down to the water in the aquifer.  What we have to think about, though, is that if the aquifer continues to drop, it will continue to pull from our lakes and lake levels may not recover.  Remember, even after it starts to rain, it takes water 3 to 5 years to filter back into the aquifer.”...”

Elaine sent this message to the LCCC Webmaster via an e-mail list she has set up at elainerenick@hotmail.com.   LCCC urges anyone who is concerned about the possible consequences of the information Elaine has gathered here to contact her at the HotMail address and ask to be put on her mailing list

Lake County,
FL