Wastewater has become the continuing hot topic brought in front of the Brooksville City Council, and in a July 15 meeting, an emergency ordinance gained approval.
The Council also heard the first reading of a permanent ordinance that will impose a limited moratorium on wastewater permits, as the city moves toward a resolution to the developing capacity issue at the William S. Smith Water Reclamation Facility. The capacity limit set forth by the Florida Department of Environment Protection is 1.9 million gallons per day.
Infiltration issues due to aging infrastructure, such as clay pipes and brick manhole covers, are exacerbated during periods of heavy rainfall. The East Avenue lift station and the State Road 50 lift station have been identified as the two biggest problem areas.
Repairing those pipes and manhole covers are the first step in a plan of action presented by community development director David Hainley and Richard Weeks, Brooksville public works director, while the continued work on an interconnect with the county and expansion of the plant’s capacity to 3 million gallons per day are also in the works.
“If we can tackle the infiltration issues that we had at 50 lift station and East Avenue, that’s roughly a million gallons a day of rainwater,” Weeks told the Council. “That saves almost a million gallons of capacity at our wastewater treatment plant.
“If we can tackle these issues and obviously that’s not going to come easy here, that’s going to come with funding. These lines are not going to be cheap to replace, these manholes are not going to be cheap to replace. It’s going to take time and money to fix this issue. But a 3 million gallon a day plant will be sufficient if we can tackle these infiltration issues.”
To that end, the city has applied for a water quality grant from the state for $25 million. There is also a study being conducted on the benefit of a potential increase in impact fees to address construction needs.
The emergency ordinance, which will last for 60 days, has been unanimously approved by the Council and allows for an immediate moratorium. That will allow time for tweaks for Ordinance No. 986, which had its first read in front of the council at the July 15 meeting. That was also unanimously approved, with a second reading set for Aug. 5.
“I do believe this situation could have been avoided,” Vice-Mayor Christa Tanner said. “It is frustrating that we are here. I do think that we are moving in the right direction with this emergency ordinance. Richard and David having identified multiple action steps for us to take that we can start taking now.
“… I believe Brooksville’s best days still lie ahead but this is quite a rough patch that we’re going to have to get through.”
Also at the July 15 meeting, Weeks fulfilled a prior request by the Council to provide a list of brick streets in the city and funding options for maintenance of those streets. The Council’s current desire is to keep those streets as brick.
As for asphalt streets discovered to have brick underneath during construction work, the current ordinance calls for work to immediately cease. The Council’s consensus is to change that ordinance to allow work to continue and keep those streets as asphalt.
The Council additionally approved the rezoning of 14.97 acres of land on the south side of West Jefferson Street, just east of the Cortez Boulevard intersection. The property has been rezoned for 180 conventional multifamily apartments, 180 townhomes or 60 duplex/villa dwelling units.
