{"id":34042,"date":"2023-07-26T21:41:06","date_gmt":"2023-07-27T01:41:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=34042"},"modified":"2023-07-26T21:41:11","modified_gmt":"2023-07-27T01:41:11","slug":"polk-county-secures-598-million-grant-for-lower-aquifer-drilling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/07\/26\/polk-county-secures-598-million-grant-for-lower-aquifer-drilling\/","title":{"rendered":"Polk County secures $598 million grant for lower aquifer drilling"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Polk Regional Water Cooperative got a big boost Wednesday to ensure the county\u2019s booming population has enough drinking water for decades to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cHoly cow,\u201d said Polk County Commissioner George Lindsey, while holding a check for $305 million from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency\u2019s Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1500\" height=\"1500\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1500px) 100vw, 1500px\" src=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/DRILLMAX250_water-spray-June-30-211.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-34043\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s a loan that, combined with a $293 million grant from the Southwest Florida Water Management District (SWFWMD), will go towards further development and construction of two lower Floridian aquifer wellsites in Lakeland and Lake Wales, plus a water treatment facility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp;\u201cThe idea is we can pull water from deep and not impact the surface but that water is highly mineralized so you have to use a [reverse osmosis] system to treat it to drinking water standards,\u201d said Brian Armstrong, executive director of SWFWMD.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Much of Polk County and the surrounding area\u2019s drinking water comes from the upper aquifer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The drilling project into the lower aquifer is a first for the Bay area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cYou drill really big and really deep wells, 3,000-6,000 feet deep compared to a 300-foot well in the upper Floridian,\u201d said Armstrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">SWFWMD projects Polk County needs to be able to produce 30 million more gallons of water a day to keep up with population growth in the next 20-30 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThere\u2019s only so much that can be drawn from the upper Floridian aquifer,\u201d said Commissioner Lindsey. \u201cWe gotta address this. We have oversubscribed the upper Floridian aquifer and we need an alternative water supply plan.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Officials expect the lower aquifer water to be flowing through Polk County pipes by 2027.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Polk Regional Water Cooperative got a big boost Wednesday to ensure the county\u2019s booming population has enough drinking water for decades to come. \u201cHoly cow,\u201d said Polk County Commissioner&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34043,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[5523],"class_list":["post-34042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-polk-county-secures-598-million-grant-for-lower-aquifer-drilling"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}