Is irrigation water treated sewerage not road run off ?
 

Someone posted on another site:

"Golf courses and common area (along major streets) irrigation comes directly from the retention ponds. Residential irrigation is waste water (ie sewage) that is treated to a safe but not drinkable safe level. Two entirely different systems and not interconnected. "

As anyone can log on anonymously there I thought I would see if this could be confirmed or denied here, where I have a sense of the trustworthyness ( or lack thereof ) of people who post here.

Village Community Development Districts

Irrigation Information

Home Irrigation:

North of CR 466, homes are irrigated with potable water.

South of CR 466, homes are irrigated with non-potable water which is comprised of storm water runoff that is collected in water retention areas and groundwater from the lower Floridan aquifer when storm water supplies are not available.

Golf Course Irrigation:

North of CR 466, golf courses are irrigated with a combination of reclaimed wastewater, storm water runoff that is collected in water retention areas, and groundwater (some upper Floridan and some Lower Floridan, depending on the specific course).


South of CR 466 all golf courses are irrigated with a combination of reclaimed wastewater and lower Floridan groundwater.

Please note that any reclaimed wastewater that is used for golf course irrigation is treated and meets the public access reuse standards established and required by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

Reclaimed water – SJRWMD

Excellent, ty

Altavia is obviously correct, as you can read the excerpts from the District website.

This is why all the suggestions about "residents running their sprinkler to prepare for the hurricane", displayed a lack of knowledge about how the system works and how things are interconnected ... or not interconnected.

Typically, courses are allowed to use water of a lower quality for irrigation, than what residents would normally use.

The water coming out of the sewerage treatments plants (in most cases) is darn close to meeting EPA drinking water standards. There are 2 logical ways to improve that water quality ... "clean the water" to a higher standard or dilute the water to reduce contaminant concentrations. I'm fairly certain TV uses both techniques to some extent.

However they do it, nobody manages water better than The Villages. It may not be "cheap" to the consumer, but we get good quality water and they keep it from flooding our homes.

Pond water irrigation used on golf courses in my are can smell at times and leaves light brown stains on cloths and golf cart when avoiding spray impossible. Which expected from pond water.

I hate getting sprayed on the multimodals by those sprinklers.

What is the goal of running the sprinklers on roadsides and golf courses in preparation for a hurricane?

Is it to lower the water level in the waste treatment plant? keep the plant from overflowing...
Is it to lower the water level in the retention ponds? Allow the storm water from the storm to refill the ponds and not overflow the land....
Is it to drain the aquifer? obviously not

As we all know the courses south of 466 use wastewater and aquifer only. I don't know what water source is used in roadside/MMP irrigation and would not assume it is the same water as used on the golf courses without some authoritative link.

But if the goal is to lower the retention ponds then having homeowners irrigate would lower them. But running irrigation on golf courses does nothing to lower retention ponds south of 466.

What tends to confuse folks in The Villages (& other places), is use of the word "ponds". Ponds used to irrigate golf courses, are a different kind of "pond" than naturally occurring ponds.

Golf course "ponds" are used (generally) for the storage of water, for golf course irrigation use. That water comes from various sources (including wells in some places).

"Drainage (retention & detention) ponds" are just that. They hold water for other reasons. Could be drainage run off, it could be for other irrigation uses. When ponds are used to hold water from a treatment plant of some sort, they're usually called "lagoons".

Misleading generalized information.

Thanks for the valuable info, esp on reclaimed h20

Don't be shy now, tell us why.

"sewerage" ... Lots of typos in The Villages.

Because it was bunch of nonsense, from someone who doesn't understand the system, who came to the erroneous conclusion that residents running their sprinklers necessarily lowers the detention basins and running sprinklers on the golf courses, does nothing of value south of 466.

Folks should familiarize themselves with how the system works, before suggesting that the Developer & the District don't know what they're doing.

Actually, the logic is sound and the question is valid. If the golf courses south of 466 use reclaimed water rather than runoff then watering them will not help the retention ponds. Watering the courses *will* help lower the ponds used by the wastewater treatment plants which we were told was an issue after this storm.

The thing that might possibly be missing is a connection from the retention ponds to the reclaimed water ponds. If such a connection exists then watering the courses and the MMPs could lower both ponds. I suspect there is such a connection but I don’t have time to look at the maps today.