Meters solve uneven water billing in Lakewood Ranch

For the past two years, some Lakewood Ranch community development districts worried they were overpaying for irrigation water in comparison to other CDDs within Phase 1 Lakewood Ranch.

That issue has been put to rest.

Lakewood Ranch’s irrigation utility, Braden River Utilities, has been working the past year to better understand the pressurized irrigation system used for Phase 1 Lakewood Ranch, composed of Lakewood Ranch CDDs 1, 2, 4 and 5 (the Summerfield, Riverwalk, Country Club and Greenbrook communities). During 2019, it spent nearly $500,000 installing meters to section off water usage for each district.

BRU Manager Bob Simons said the district’s January water bills will reflect the new metering program.

Previously, BRU calculated the total usage for Phase 1 Lakewood Ranch and divided it across the acreage for each district. Under the new metering system, CDDs 1 and 4 will be paying about 30% more than before, which indicates they were subsidized by their peers, which all were fairly similar in size. CDD 1 is 278 acres, CDD 5 is 270 acres, CDD 2 is 244 acres, and CDD 4 is 243 acres.

At a Jan. 29 workshop with BRU, some CDD supervisors said they were glad to have a better understanding of how BRU’s billing works and that the metering will resolve longstanding concerns. The new metering system ensures districts are only paying for water they are using.

“It answered a lot of questions over the control of the water,” CDD 2 Supervisor Tom Green said. “Hopefully, we’re getting a true accounting of what we’re using.”

Simons said BRU is shifting away from the pressurized irrigation system seen in Phase 1 Lakewood Ranch and instead having new communities put in their own pump stations. BRU simply delivers water to a reservoir, and the community pumps water as needed.

“They fill their lake and keep it at a certain level,” Simons said.

In other BRU news, Simons said Lakewood Ranch is nearing buildout of its infrastructure and is currently building 11 miles of roads in the northeast part of the community, roughly spanning north and east from the corner of Lorraine Road and State Road 70. Although residential buildout might take another 15 to 20 years, the irrigation pipelines for those future projects will be in place within two years.

Simons said he worries some Lakewood Ranch communities will require more water for irrigation than what they are approved for use by regulatory agencies — Lakewood Ranch currently uses about 86% of what is allowed by the Southwest Water Management District — but he is optimistic solutions will be found. He also believes a mindset of water conservation will be forthcoming to make more water available.

BRU worked with Phase 1 CDDs last year to have more than 1,000 soil moisture sensors installed. The devices monitor moisture in the soil and turn on irrigation systems only when water is needed.

However, Simons said people must trust the systems to work appropriately and should not set them to “bypass,” which means they run twice weekly whether water is needed or not.

Simons said BRU is lobbying the Florida Department of Environmental Protection for a new aquatic storage and recovery system that would inject water into the aquifer and then pull it out when needed. Simons said waters of differing salt levels will not mix, so the waters will naturally separate.

BRU could use the system to store heavy summer rains until the dry months, when more water is needed. Simons said BRU has been working on the idea for two years, but DEP officials are hesitant to use such a technology.

“Until DEP allows us to, there isn’t anything we can do,” he said.

BRU currently has three sources of irrigation water: surface water, well water and reclaimed water from the cities of Bradenton and Sarasota and from Manatee County.

Braden River Utilities is owned and managed by Lakewood Ranch developer Schroeder-Manatee Ranch.