MARION COUNTY, Fla. — Someone new is eying your water supply. Water is already running short in Florida, but a local family wants to tap and bottle the spring that feeds Lake George in Marion County.
Now, some homeowners who live there say they're gearing up for a big fight at a public hearing next week.
For Brian Suciu, life around Lake George may never be the same.
"I didn't think it would ever pass. But with the right money, I guess you can make anything pass," he said.
Suciu and his neighbors are worried about losing their drinking water. The lake and everybody's wells around the area are fed by artesian springs; it's pure mineral water, water a local landowner would like to bottle and sell.
"It's 90,000 gallons a day. That's an awful lot of water," neighbor Jack Fitzpatrick said.
Fitzpatrick is afraid his own well will run dry.
"Most people think there's this big pocket of water and we're sticking these straws down in here and will eventually suck it dry," Lawren Moody said.
But Moody says that's not how it will happen. He has plans for a 28,000 square-foot bottling plant near State Road 19, but he says instead of pumping water out, the artesian system naturally shoots water to the surface.
"You have to think of it as an underground river that moves at a tremendous rate. And it has to be to generate that much force and this many springs," he explained.
Moody admits there would be a few dozen more big trucks, but there are nearly 500 per day now.
But neighbors say, in the age of water restrictions, a gallon of water going out for sale is a gallon too much.
"What, are we gonna wait until our wells go dry? What impact it's gonna be? Or the lake drops another couple of inches? And it's dropping already," Fitzpatrick said.
The Moody family says if the project is approved, they will invest nearly $6 million on the plant and equipment and hire up to 60 people. The Marion County Commission will vote on the plan next Tuesday.
There are already four other bottlers in Marion County, plus two in Lake County. All of the bottlers in the St. Johns River Water Management District draw out more than a million gallons of water every day, but water managers who approve the permits say that's just one-tenth of one-percent of the water used in the area.
WFTV
