<font color=red>Column:</font> There's No More Cheap Water

As our county experiences another drought period in that ever-cyclical nature of too much rain or too little rain, much has been written about our water shortage and the effect of growth on what Mother Nature has provided us.

Florida, with its rich diversity of lakes, rivers, underground aquifers, deep-water storage capacity and thousands of miles of coastline, offers a limitless quantity of water resources.

The real issue has not been a shortage of water, but rather the distribution and cost of water. The real issue is there is plenty of water, but there is no more cheap water. Now we have to spend more, and conserve a lot more, to continue to enjoy this natural resource.

The home-building industry understands the issue and is working on the solutions. This understanding has made new home builders leaders in water conservation.

In the past decade, water consumption per person, inside the home, has dropped to an average 74 gallons per day - 26 percent of that water consumption is attributed to toilets, 23 percent to washing clothes, 18 percent to showering and 15 percent to faucets. With 1.6-gallon flush toilets, we see a 40 percent reduction in the highest water-using device in the household.

Additionally, the building industry is encouraging the Polk County Commission to adopt the sensible allocation of reuse water, the prohibition of irrigating lawns with drinking water and the review of their extensive landscape-buffer requirements. If a few simple mandates are enacted by the commission, we could reach a greater level of water conservation, unlike anything we have approached to date.

Now is the time to reach that next level in water conservation. Now is time to ensure that all of us have a plentiful supply of water, come "rain or shine."

Mike Hickman is the president of Hickman Homes in Lakeland, Fla. He is the former president of the Florida Home Builders Association.