What Did the Freeze Do to East Tampa Bay?

Every winter whenever the temperature dips near 32 degrees, those of us who live among the strawberry fields go to bed hearing the pumps running and often wake up to those same pumps running. The pumps I'm talking about, for those of you who don't live in Florida, are the pumps that run the well water from underground to the sprinklers that are run all night on the strawberry farms to keep the strawberry blooms from freezing.

The farmers use the water to create a protective frozen barrier around the strawberry plants, their fruit and their blossoms. They use well water, not city water because it remains at a constant 72 degrees.
http://www.wtsp.com/news/mostpop/story.aspx?storyid=122547&provider=top

This winter set a record for the nighttime pump symphony. We heard the pumps running for 11 days. We've never had a freeze that long. It caused a lot of problems for the strawberry farmers, the citrus growers, the tropical fish farmers, nursery owners and anyone who lives among the citrus or strawberry farms. The water table went down 60 feet, which wouldn't be a huge problem in a lot of places of this country. But in the East Tampa Bay area it can be devastating especially during the economic time that we're going through.

Florida is a peninsula that's founded on a limestone substructure, covered in very sandy soil and in many places sand, with a lot of water above-ground as well as surrounded by water. Which isn't a problem as long as the water table is up where it normally goes when there's enough water fall and minimal freezing during the winter. However when both of those elements are out of sink, such as we just came off a three year drought and we just came through an eleven day freeze there can be some really tough situations to deal with.

The limestone aquifer which supports this state dissolves over time due to exposure to water, and is displaced by water. That's not a problem as long as the water table is up where the water pressure supports the top layer of ground that covers the aquifer. But when the water is missing due to drought or excessive freeze conditions we end up with a condition known as sink holes.
http://www.wtsp.com/news/mostpop/story.aspx?storyid=122374&provider=top

When the water pressure is no longer supporting the soil which is supporting our homes and property the ground gives way and reveals a hole in the ground, as small as a depression to as large as the lakes that dot our state. The sink holes often swallow roads and entire buildings.

This year there were a lot more sink holes than in most years. The sink holes almost closed a major freeway,I-4, near Plant City, that goes from Tampa to Orlando, for almost a week. It closed down a part of 92 in the same area and several other roads all in or around Plant City. There were also at least two in Dover, one of them near us. Many of them affected roads. But some of them also affected fences, houses and parts of property.
Some of them have swallowed houses. there were also sink holes in Tampa and Temple Terrace on USF.

Many people have also lost their wells due to being dried out by the pumping. Our cousin is one of them.

The governor has declared a state of emergency for the farmers but the small land owners have as yet been overlooked. It's true that agriculture is one our largest income producers and employers in this state, but what good does it do if they produce at the expense of their neighbors? The same is true for all the people who move into this state and buy a new home on what was a strawberry field or orange grove. There needs to be a balance between both interests, where both sides' needs are addressed.
http://www.wtsp.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=122395&catid=8

There have been suggestions that Swiftmud, 813-985-7481,(Water management district) should get together a team which includes homeowners to explore ways and means that help everyone.
Donna Koehn

That suggestion is definitely in need of being addressed, especially since new residents are still coming into our area and moving into homes that have taken over former farm land and using the water resource that many of them don't realize is affecting all of their neighbors.

Sources:

Grayson Kamm, http://www.wtsp.com/news/mostpop/story.aspx?storyid=122547&provider=top

Donna Koehn, 1/17/2010, pp 1,7,Tampa Tribune

Elizabeth Gold, http://www.wtsp.com/news/mostpop/story.aspx?storyid=122374&provider=top

Laura Kadechka, http://www.wtsp.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=122395&catid=8

Leigh Spann, http://www.tboblogs.com/index.php/news/story/a-cold-start-to-the-year