Sent 07/27/07

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07/27/07

Two old sewer plants allowed to discharge into county creeks

The nutrient-loaded sewage wastewater discharges will stop next June. A consent order allows them until improvements are finished at a bigger facility.

While Sarasota County builds a $157 million sewer system and dismantles thousands of septic tanks to keep harmful pollution out of the Sarasota Bay system, two old sewer plants continue to drain nutrient-loaded wastewater into Phillippi Creek and Matheny Creek.

On July 10, without any comment, the county commission approved a deal with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection that allows each of the plants to keep discharging more than a million gallons of treated sewage a day until next June 30.

The county's Gulf Gate plant treats up to 1.9 million gallons of raw sewage a day and discharges more than 1 million gallons of treated wastewater into Matheny Creek, which empties into Roberts Bay just south of the Stickney Point Road Bridge.

Not far away, the county's South Gate plant treats up to 1.4 million gallons of sewage a day and discharges more than a million gallons of wastewater into Phillippi Creek, which also empties into Roberts Bay about a mile north of the bridge.

Both plants violate federal pollution standards for chronic toxicity discharges into surface waters, but they are allowed to operate under a state consent order negotiated with the former utility holding company that sold them to the county.

When the county acquired the two plants in 2004, it was with the understanding they would be shut down and dismantled no later than this autumn.

The July 10 deal with state environmental regulators allows the county to keep operating them through next June.

The justification for allowing illegal discharges to continue is that an $11 million Central County Water Reclamation Facility expansion project is behind schedule because the understaffed state agency was unable to issue permits in a timely fashion.

"By August of next year we have to abandon these plants and no longer accept any (sewage) flow," said Vern Hall, a county utility manager. "We have to disconnect the power and stop the chemical feed. Once these facilities are off line, all the discharge problems go away."

When that time comes, sewage pumped to the two old plants will be diverted to the expanded water reclamation facility.

"It won't cost a significant amount of money to decommission the plants," Hall said. "Then we'll clean out tanks and auction off the property."

Both plants were part of a $21.7 million acquisition that brought private utilities formerly operated by the Florida Cities Water Co. and owned by Avatar Holdings Utilities into county ownership. They were briefly held by a Florida Government Utilities Authority.

A stipulation in the purchase agreement required the county to abide by a consent order negotiated between the Department of Environmental Regulation and the utilities authority that stemmed from illegal discharges at the Gulf Gate plant.

Severn-Trent, a contractor temporarily employed by the utilities authority to operate the plant, was cited for discharges into Matheny Creek and Little Sarasota Bay. The state approved a consent order that included a remediation plan and $140,000 in fines.

By Jack Gurney

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