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1.
Standard Income
All
standard income is from RAINFALL.
Lee
County gets on an annual average 52" rainfall a year. In
other words, 4 and 1/3 cubic feet of water land on every square foot of
Lee County, and every cubic foot of water has about 7.5 gallons of water
in it. Each square foot of Lee County then gets
approximately 32.5 gallons dropped on it each year.
Lee
County is 804 square miles. To calculate this rainfall volume in
gallons, it is 804 times 640 times 43560 times 32.5. This totals
728,462,592,000 gallons as income. Convert this into million
gallons a day and the number is 1,996 mgd. Convert this into one
equivalent stream flow as cubic feet per second, and the number is 3080
cfs.
2.
Transfers In
Lee
County receives transfers “in.” This is streamflow, piped
water, and aquifer flow that come in from other counties. The
Caloosahatchee is the obvious flow “in” since it comes from one
site. There are other flows that come into the county from
neighbors.
Aquifer
flows from other places are pervasive. They start as rainfall
elsewhere and come in more slowly.
3.
Enterprise Income
Enterprise
income is taking saltwater and converting it to freshwater. Done
naturally by sunlight through a distillation process, technology makes
this source more reliable for use, whether reverse osmosis or more
involved desalination. It is in use in Lee County in three places.
4.
Standard Expenses
There
is one standard expense: evapotranspiration. This is the humidity.
The evaporation rate is an expense that can be tinkered with by creating
more space to hold water so it can evaporate, or remove it too fast to
evaporate, or quickly store it. For a rough number, though, an
expense of 80% is presumed. Taking away evaporation applied at a
constant rate, and the water available is 145692518400 gallons, or
399mgd, or 614 cfs.
This
expense (plus transfers in) sustains our terrestrial ecology.
5.
Transfers Out
There
are three types of transfers “out.” They are drainage, water
piped out, and aquifer flow out.
Drainage
is a normal condition and it occurs naturally when the storage (see
savings account/cashbox) is full. Drainage goes to other counties
or into the saltwater system, which makes it a transfer into estuarine
ecological productivity. (However, variations in volume damage
estuarine productivity)
Water
piped out is not occurring to any great extent, but does happen in many
Florida Counties.
Aquifer
flow out is either a continuation of flow of an aquifer that underlays
the county or one that originates in the county but continues on.
6.
Enterprise Expenditures.
This
is the forced dehydration of our water storage areas (see savings
account/cashbox). Whether called drainage or flood control, this removal
of water-involving human expense-eliminates some portion of the water
available from Lee County sources. When Enterprise Expenditures
and Transfers Out exceed the water left (“cashbox”) after standard
expenses, then problems occur for man’s living allowance.
7.
Cash Box
The
“cash box” is the water “transitioning” from “income” to
“expense”-a surface water pond or reservoir, the water table aquifer
(a.k.a. groundwater), or a river or stream. We use it,
and affect the nature of the transition, but it still transitions.
Under a natural system process, there is always water in the
“cashbox,” just less at the end of the dry season than there is in
the wet season.
8.
Savings Account
The
savings account is the water “not transitioning.” This would
be water bodies that are always present. This would be the lake
level that never drops below a certain point, groundwater sources that
never empty. It is the rainfall that is never “consumed” and
has built up over thousands of years. For Lee County it would be
the aquifer systems below the surficial/water table aquifer. These
may be in transfer in/out mode, but are there.
When
our expenses exceed the cashbox, we draw from our savings. If we
do not replenish our savings, and keep drawing from them, we face
bankruptcy.
9.
Bankruptcy and Foreclosure.
Bankruptcy
begins with water shortages and ends with foreclosure through water
sources polluted with salt, or dried wetlands/dead wildlife, or rural
fires that rage beyond management. We are facing some aspects of
bankruptcy as an annual occurrence.
10.
Living Allowance
We
do not consume water-we use it-utilities, farm irrigation, mining, and
so forth. How much we can use depends upon how well we balance
income and expenses.
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