Tampa Bay Water is the region’s wholesale drinking water utility serving six member governments in the tri-county area. It has often been called the region’s greatest environmental success story because its formation in 1998 ended the region’s water wars and paved the way for alternative water supply sources that enabled the regional utility to reduce the region’s reliance on groundwater.
In 2023, the utility celebrated its 25th anniversary. Dialogue Public Relations helped Tampa Bay Water create a documentary to honor the elected officials, utility directors and city and county administrators who took part in envisioning a regional solution and bringing it to fruition. The documentary also preserves the knowledge and history that went into creating Tampa Bay Water and how the process can be a model for others to follow when solving complex regional issues.
Dialogue pored through copious amounts of news articles and archives to develop a clear picture of the key milestones leading to the utility’s genesis. Then Dialogue tracked down more than 30 of the people involved in Tampa Bay Water’s creation to schedule and conduct interviews, later assisting with script writing, shot development, and video editing with the production company.
The documentary premiered at Tampa Bay Water’s 25th anniversary celebration and was later screened by Florida Humanities at the St. Pete History Museum for World Water Day 2024. The full documentary can be viewed at TampaBayWater.org/25.
