October 16, 2008
Push for Yankee Lake pump feels like another public scam
By ERIC WEST
COMMUNITY VOICE

 
Many of us suffer the same anger and disappointment when we learn that our elected officials or government agencies have not been pretending to work on our behalf but are doing the opposite. Such a sad episode is playing out right now in Sanford, where an administrative judge is hearing the case against allowing the St. Johns River Water Management District and Seminole County to construct a facility at Yankee Lake to remove water from the St. Johns River.
 
Fighting this are St. Johns County, Jacksonville and the St. Johns Riverkeeper (a nonprofit organization formed to help protect the river). The water management district and Seminole County want to build a water plant with capacity to pump 5.5 million gallons a day from the river to supply irrigation and potable water to the northern sectors of Seminole County, most notably, the most water inefficient community in all of the district's purview -- Heathrow.