Reservoir repairs are underway

Customers of Tampa Bay Water can expect to see their bills increase because of the controversial reservoir in South Hillsborough County. Ever since it began operating in 2005, it has had problems. Cracks started popping up. They became so bad, Tampa Bay Water decided to start from scratch again and re-build the entire thing at a cost of about $130 million.

"The full implementation of this project is approximately a dollar a month per household to the customers of our system," Jonathan Kennedy of Tampa Bay Water told FOX 13 on Thursday.

The original cost of building the reservoir was about $150 million. Eventually, Tampa Bay Water sued the three companies involved in the construction of the project, and walked away with less than $8 million.

The new reservoir will not be done for two years. In the meantime, Tampa Bay Water, which serves 2.3 million customers in Pinellas, Hillsborough and Pasco counties, says even with the reservoir out of commission it would have enough water during an extended drought. That's because it could draw on other sources like the desalinization plant in Apollo Beach, runoff and groundwater.