• Concern about a possible conflict of interest may prompt a state ethics review of a multimillion-dollar desalination project for Tampa Bay.
• Hillsborough County Commissioner Jim Norman said Wednesday he thinks PB Water, a consultant evaluating bids for the project, may have an ethical conflict because it previously worked with Ionics Inc., a partner in one of the bidding groups.
• Last month, the general counsel for regional water agency Tampa Bay Water declared there was no con- flict. Donald Conn emphasized PB Water had withdrawn from, and wasn't compensated for, its work with Ionics on a desalination project in Trinidad.
• ...Norman, who recently left the Tampa Bay Water board as a Hillsborough representative. He said he would seek a state ethics review.
• Ionics teamed with St. Petersburg's Progress Energy Corp. to compete against three other bidders, including a group led by a DuPont Co. subsidiary, for the lucrative Tampa Bay Water desalination contract.
• Norman said he is troubled by allegations from an attorney for one of the DuPont partners that there have been 19 irregularities in the bidding process.
• ``The irregularities favoring the Progress Energy/Ionics' proposal clearly suggest that PB Water is biased towards this bidder,'' lawyer H. Vance Smith wrote Conn last week on behalf of DuPont partner Enpower Inc.
• Norman said Ionics suggested to Tampa Bay Water officials in October that all bidders should face three requirements. The requirements would tend to favor the Progress Energy/ Ionics team, Norman said.
• Later in October, PB Water recommended including all three requirements, he said.
• Next month, the board is scheduled to select the winner for the project aimed at converting seawater into 20 million gallons of drinking water a day. It would be the nation's largest saltwater conversion plant.

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