Riviera Beach leaders took a major step last month to launch construction of a $400 million water plant and to shore up its faltering drinking water system.
Last year, the city was fined more than $1.2 million for violating Florida Department of Health water standards.
At an Aug. 20 meeting, City Council members serving as the Utility District Board approved spending:
- $28.4 million for the drilling of a deep-injection well to serve the new plant to be built at Blue Heron Boulevard and Avenue L.
- $4 million for New Port Richey-based consultant U.S. Water Services, which had been running the city’s 1958 water plant, to complete repairs and maintenance work.
“What the board did tonight was pretty monumental for this city,” Council Member Glen Spiritis said after the votes.
In the wake of last year’s water troubles, the city has hired a utility director, Joshua Niemann.
After a nationwide recruitment search, Niemann joined the city in June from Deerfield Beach, where he was assistant director of environmental services.
His challenges include:
- Keeping the aging lime-softening water plant running until the completion of a new plant.
- Reducing sediment in city drinking water.
- Getting most of the city’s drinking water wells in working order.
- Rebuilding community trust damaged after the departure of his predecessor and top staffers in light of last year’s water-testing scandal.
The new plant
A joint venture of Haskell and CDM Smith engineering and construction firms is designing and will direct work on the new plant. Construction costs will be covered by increased fees on city water customers.
One of the first steps, approved in August, is to drill the 3,500-foot deep-injection well to store the byproducts of water treatment deep below ground.
The new plant will use membranes to filter salt, minerals and other substances out of the drinking water. Water highly concentrated with those elements will be left over.
That leftover water, called slurry, will be stored in the deep well, hundreds of feet below the level from which the city draws drinking water. Drilling could begin this month. The work will continue 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for about a year.
The old plant
After the problems with water sample tests became public last year, the city hired U.S. Water Services in August to assess the city’s water system. The $4 million approved last month is an extension of the city’s contract.
Council Chairperson Shirley Lanier voted against the extension, which passed 4-1.
“We have one water plant that we are trying to keep afloat. We have another that we are trying to get online. We have money going out the door, a lot,” Lanier said at the meeting.“ We have got to get to some point where we transition from consultants.”
Niemann said the work assigned to U.S. Water, which includes rebuilding equipment, is beyond the scope of city water plant staff.
He agreed with Lanier’s request that he provide a transition plan for U.S. Water to hand over operations to the city.
Not so fast, Council Member Bruce Guyton countered.
“We relied on staff that didn’t have the background to recognize problems,” Guyton said. “Outsourcing, if it saves us million-dollar fines and the quality of water increases, is well worth it.”
He continued, “We don’t know how to run a water plant right now.”
Spiritis supported the consultants.
“We’re going to find a lot more wrong with this plant in the next few months, is my guess,” Spiritis said. “We have to recognize that we have a dinosaur of a water plant.”
Removing sediment, fixing wells
Niemann said he expects U.S. Water’s work on water filter beds and piping will reduce sediment in the water.
The city draws water before treatment from underground through 27 wells. All need work, which has been assigned to Boca Raton-based Globaltech, an engineering firm.
“None of your wells are in good condition,” Globaltech project manager David Schman said at the meeting. He noted that the city may abandon some wells if it can increase the capacity of others.
Globaltech is working on or has completed work on nine of the wells, he said. The consultant told the council he expects the work on the wells to take another year.
This story was originally published by Stet News Palm Beach, a WLRN News partner.
