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Waste Not Used Water

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By GEORGE H. NEWMAN

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 7, 2008

PLANT CITY - After almost two years of construction, the city's $54 million wastewater treatment facility is online and doing what it was designed to do, city officials say.

The new plant, built on the same site as the 11-year-old facility it replaced, better cleans the wastewater, has a larger capacity and is more efficient. The plant produces what is known as reclaimed water, which can be sold to customers who use it for irrigation, commercial or industrial purposes.

"Ideally, we would sell as much reclaimed water as we can." said Frank Coughenour, the city's utilities operations manager. "We expect our customer base for reclaimed water to increase. But most importantly, we now have a very efficient, high-volume treatment plant that can process a peak of 27 million gallons each day."

The city sells reclaimed water processed at the plant at 1500 W. Victoria St., south of Interstate 4, to industrial and agricultural customers. The city also uses the reclaimed water to irrigate foliage along the interstate.
City Finance Director Martin Wisgerhof said the city is borrowing nearly $48 million to pay for the plant, with the remainder coming from various sources. The city's utility users are paying for the project through higher charges for sewage treatment.

The project was the most expensive in city government's history.

The city's approximately 34,000 residents and commercial and industrial customers produce about 5 million to 6 million gallons of wastewater each day. The new plant, which came online in late January, can handle up to 10 million gallons of wastewater per day and easily could be expanded to treat 12 million gallons per day, Coughenour said. In emergencies, it can handle more than 20 million gallons per day, such as the city saw during the busy 2004 hurricane season.

Ideally, the city would like to sell all its reclaimed water, but it doesn't have enough demand for it, so unsold water is discharged into the Eastside Canal at Knights-Griffin Road. A dechlorinator and reoxygenation system at that location treats the water before it reaches the canal, which flows north to Blackwater Creek. The creek is a tributary to the Hillsborough River, Tampa's main source of drinking water.

The city is restricted by the state to discharge no more than an annual average of 2.68 million each day into the canal. That number can be renegotiated, but the best practice for the city is to increase its customer base for reclaimed water.

The city is working to expand its lines, so more customers can tap into reclaimed water.

The largest customer is CF Industries, a phosphate processing company north of town off Paul Buchman Highway. The plant uses 2 million gallons each day.

About another million gallons per day is purchased by agricultural and commercial users. The city also uses reclaimed water to irrigate shrubbery on intersections along Interstate 4. In addition, plans are in the works to irrigate parks and recreation grounds, officials said.

The city is working with Two Rivers Ranch, also north of town, on a deal that would supply the ranch with 1 million gallons each day. The ranch owners are working on an agreement with the Southwest Florida Water Management District that would permit such an arrangement. The city is also seeking $500,000 from the state to run reclaimed water lines to Walden Lake Golf and Country Club to provide water for the common areas in Walden Lake, the city's largest subdivision.

County and state regulations that couldn't be met forced the city to invest in the new plant. The old system was efficient in tests regarding clarity and chlorine levels, but the dechlorinated water discharged to the Eastside Canal failed an important biological standard. In 2003, under threat of fines by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the city agreed to make improvements to the plant because its wastewater had too much nitrogen.

The city replaced clarifying tanks with state-of-the-art equipment and added a 4-million-gallon storage tank for reclaimed water. The tank was built next to two 4-million-gallon tanks the city had on the site. The city uses the tanks to store reclaimed water until it can be sold or discharged.

Basically, the treatment plant works with six major components that help to turn sewage and wastewater into water that can be classified as reclaimed and safe to be used by customers or returned to the environment. The plant uses filters, beneficial bacteria and chlorine to make the water safe.

Industrial and commercial customers of the city wastewater system are required by the state to pretreat the wastewater they discharge into the sewage treatment system, Coughenour said. That helps the municipal treatment plants handle higher volumes of flow.

The filtered and chlorinated reclaimed water is stored in the three 4-million-gallon tanks, then within a day or two is piped to the city's reclaimed water users or discharged into the canal.

The $54 million project is the first major addition to the plant since $20 million in wastewater and drinking water improvements were completed in 1997, which included equipment the city needed to produce reclaimed water for the first time.

The city improved the plant after the state ordered it to stop discharging nutrient-rich effluent into tributaries of Lake Thonotosassa.

BY THE NUMBERS

•Customers of the city's sewage treatment system pay for the project through higher rates, including 9 percent increases that took effect in April 2004 and in October 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007. The rates now go up by a utilities inflation rate set each year by the Florida Public Service Commission.

•Residential sewage treatment customers who paid about $3.60 per 1,000 gallons of estimated usage in 2003 now pay $4.82 per 1,000 gallons.

•The city charges industrial and commercial customers 25 cents per 1,000 gallons of reclaimed water. Residential and commercial irrigation customers (those who use reclaimed water for lawns and shrubs) pay 99 cents per 1,000 gallons for amounts up to 20,000 gallons and $1.37 for each 1,000 gallons over 20,000 gallons. Agriculture and outdoor recreation irrigation customers pay 5 cents per 1,000 gallons. Only certain parts of the city have access to reclaimed water.

Reporter George H. Newman can be reached at (813) 865-4451 or gnewman@tampatrib.com.

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