DELRAY BEACH, Florida (16 Dec 2006) -- A sewage treatment plant sending an average of 13 million gallons of partly treated wastewater into the sea each day will discontinue the practice within the next few years, board members of the utility decided unanimously Thursday. The vote will make the outfall pipe carrying the waste of Delray and Boynton Beach residents the first of six remaining such pipes in South Florida to go out of regular use. The plant will instead use a deep well to dispose of more highly treated waste. The decision was the culmination of a four-year struggle by the nonprofit Palm Beach County Reef Rescue to draw attention to the effects of the outfall on the nearby coral reef system, which has been suffocating in recent years under a pollution-fed toxic algae bloom. "I'm glad they made the right decision. We support them one hundred percent, and we'll do anything we can to help them," Ed Tichenor, the group's director, said. The decision also represented a major step toward a resolution of the plant's 18-month-long quest to renew its permit in the face of mounting public resistance and criticism from county environmental officials. In the course of negotiations for that permit, the South Central Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant agreed to spend $600,000 to study the effects of its discharge. Instead the two cities will spend $17 million over the next two years to build a deep well on the plant's site. "We will probably need to revisit our sewer rates pretty quickly," said Delray Beach Commissioner Jon Levinson, who along with the other commissioners of both cities, sits on the board. While the plant now treats and sends about 25 percent of the wastewater into reuse for irrigation, finding customers for the reclaimed water and building additional pipes has been a challenge. At the same time, a condition for the plant's new permit would have restricted its use of the outfall to the present average of 13 million gallons a day, which would have interfered with the continued population growth of both cities. While Levinson and plant operator Robert Hagel continued to question whether the plant's discharge was responsible for the algae bloom, Rep. Richard Machek, D-Delray Beach, who attended the meeting, said that if the board had not agreed to close the outfall, he would have introduced a bill to limit the amount of potentially algae-feeding nitrogen the plant could discharge through the pipe. He cited research from the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution linking nitrogen from outfalls to nitrogen feeding the algae. | | More than 95 percent of Florida's coral reefs have been wiped out primarily by pollution, global warming and overfishing. "I think Delray Beach and Boynton Beach made a giant step forward," he said. But with the decision to close the pipe, County Commissioner Mary McCarty questioned if the plant still needed to spend $600,000 on a study of its effects, adding, "It's ridiculous." Delray Beach Mayor Jeff Perlman noted the study was one of the state's requirements for the permit, remarking, "another unfunded mandate." Levinson questioned if the deep-well alternative also would face controversy. "I don't want another group sitting around 20 years from now saying, 'What were you thinking?'" he said. Boynton Beach Commissioner Brenda Montague asked if the state would write a letter supporting the change. "A permit is the best letter of support," Hagel noted. CDNN Related NewsFLORIDA - 'Stop the shit' Reef Rescue tells Florida stateFLORIDA - Eco divers blow whistle on Florida's 'sewage coast' polluters |
