Tampa Bay Water 2023 Long-Term Master Plan Update
Tampa Bay Water, the region’s wholesale water utility, delivers high-quality drinking water to more than 2.5 million people in the Tampa Bay area. Every five years, the utility updates its Long-term Master Water Plan (LTMWP), a 20-year plan that identifies potential water supply projects that could be designed and built to meet future drinking water needs for the region.
Tampa Bay Water has a long history of incorporating transparent, proactive public outreach into its projects and programs. For the 2023 LTMWP update, Tampa Bay Water contracted with Black & Veatch; Dialogue Public Relations handled public outreach as a subconsultant to Black & Veatch.
In the early stages of the LTMWP update, when projects are conceptual and loosely defined, engagement is more general, focusing on potential sources and concepts and the planning process. Once project concepts are better developed and projects are selected for detailed planning and feasibility studies, more project-specific outreach occurs.
For the 2023 LTMWP, Tampa Bay Water sought to engage stakeholders through several efforts:
- A statistically valid public opinion survey
- Secondary research conducted by the Southwest Florida Water Management District (District)
- Multiple meetings with technical, environmental and economic ad-hoc committees
- Focus groups among Member Government water customers
- Presentations to key stakeholder groups and
- A telephone town hall meeting with Zoom simulcast.
The public engagement effort provided valuable insights for Tampa Bay Water to present to its board of directors to help inform its decision-making process. The input was factored into project scoring with existing sources (groundwater, surface water and seawater) ranking higher than new alternative sources (potable reuse) from a public acceptance perspective. It will also be used to tailor scopes of work for projects moving into the feasibility stage.
