ABSTRACT
T he “water wars” in the Tampa Bay region between the governments of Pasco, Pinellas, and Hillsborough Counties and the cities of St. Petersburg, Tampa, and New Port Richey began in the early 1970s when densely populated but water-poor Pinellas County started buying land and developing drinking-water wellfields in Pasco and Hillsborough Counties (Figure 4-1). Groundwater pumping in the Tampa Bay region increased 400 percent between 1960 and 1996, and currently over 20 billion gallons of water is exported from Pasco County to Pinellas County every year (Glennon 2002). Pasco and Hillsborough Counties were not happy with the southbound flow of the water. The impact of the wells on lakes and wetlands, including damage to local residents’ homes, prompted countless legal challenges, but courts and the Legislature supported the claims of Pinellas County and the city of St. Petersburg. This chapter analyzes two attempts to create institutions to resolve the conflict, one that failed and the current one that holds some promise. We present the history in some detail to demonstrate the complexity of resolving conflicts, and then consider lessons for adaptive governance.
