Conservation Chair: Nancy Stevens
nancy.stevens@florida.sierraclub.org
Conservation Committee
The Tampa Bay Group Conservation Committee meets on the second Monday of each month at 6:30pm.
Where: Zoom. Email for link.
Join us to learn more about local conservation issues and campaigns including fracking, climate change, transportation issues, wildlife and land conservation, phosphate mining, renewable energy and much more.
Tampa’s PURE Process
What is PURE?
Purify Usable Resources for the Environment (PURE) is a proposed wastewater reuse process that is considering options for using highly treated wastewater from Tampa’s sewage system for drinking water and/or to replenish the aquifer and Hillsborough River. When first proposed several years ago, many residents nicknamed a similar project “Toilet to Tap.”
Currently, some treated wastewater (“reclaimed water”) is used for outdoor irrigation, available in limited parts of Tampa. The City’s remaining treated wastewater (about 50 million gallons per day) is released to Seddon Channel across from the southern tip of Davis Islands, where it mixes with other water as part of Tampa Bay, an estuary that contains a mixture of fresh and salt water.
PURE proposes further treatment, but the water may still be contaminated and unsafe to drink.