If all goes as planned, by the end of fiscal year 2024 Okaloosa County officials will have spent $6 million in federal aid to line24 miles of the worst sections of unlined clay sewer pipesin the south county.
Provided by the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act, the funding will pay to upgrade more than one third of the 63miles of unlined vitrified clay gravity sewer mains in the county’s overall water and sewer service area.
Background:Okaloosa still dealing with sewage issues from Hurricane Sally
“We intend to install cured-in-place pipe (or 'liners') for all 63 miles over a period of time,” Mark Wise, deputy director of the county Water and Sewer Department, said in an email Friday.
“This will reduce groundwater infiltration, possible wastewater exfiltrationand root intrusion,” added Wise, who noted that other utilities in the county also have clay pipes.
The planned lining of many of the county’s aging clay sewer pipes is welcomenews for many people, including local environmentalists such as Cay Burton.
She is the vice president of the Democratic Environmental Caucus of Florida and past president of its Okaloosa County chapter. Members of the local chapter use Florida Department of Environmental Protection data to help them keep tabs on area sewage spills.
A number of past spillsled to health warnings andbeach closures.
“We don’t think our children want to inherit an environment where they can’t go swimming and have no fish left because of all the pollution” of waterways from various spills, Burton said recently.
Waters contaminated with wastewater presentseveral health hazards to humans. The wastewatermay contain untreated human sewage with microbes that could cause gastro-intestinal and other diseases, according to the FloridaDepartment of Health in Okaloosa County.
Health advisories:Garniers, Lincoln and Lions parks under health advisory due to bacteria, sewage spill
Burton cited variouslocal sewage spillsthat occurred in recent years. For example, sherememberswhen inJuly 2018,1,200 gallons of sewage spilled from a failing county lift station and flowed into Choctawhatchee Bay nearVeterans Park on Okaloosa Island. County officials were able to recoverabout 500 gallons of the waste.
Somesewage spills occurwhen huge amounts of stormwater overwhelmlift stations, which are designed to move wastewater from lower to higher elevations.
Burton recalled numerous localsewage spills that occurred during Hurricane Sally in September 2020. A news report stated that 117 lift station failures across the Panhandle, including 58 in Okaloosa County, occurred during the storm.
“We never know when a big hurricane will come,” Burton said. “Until (county officials) get (major sewer system upgrades) done, we’ll still be vulnerable to these spills.”
She said local officials need to do a better job to makesure that public sewer systems keep up with the fast-growing area.
“You’re going to pay for it on the front end or the back end, and you’ll pay more on the back end,” Burton said.
According to Wise, Okaloosa County operates 155 lift stations.
“All of our lift stations are in good working condition,” he said. “As a proactive initiative for the long term and to be postured and resilient for storms and emergencies, we have 28 lift stations in the next two years that are scheduled to have major upgrades or repairs. This includes various types of improvements, such asrehab of existing stations, complete replacement of existing stations, addition of stationary generatorsand the addition of stationary bypass pumps.”
Wise said the most common cause of sanitary sewer overflows this past year were gravity sewer main blockages caused by grease and rags that customers put in the wastewater system.
“Here’s some context on occurrence vs. capacity: Our wastewater systems processed approximately 3 billion gallons total during FY 2021,” hesaid in the email. “During this period —from Oct. 1, 2020 to Sept. 30, 2021 —we had two sanitary sewer overflows into water bodies, totaling 1,400 gallons.”
Of that total,200 gallons were attributed to a lift station failure during a storm and1,200 gallons were attributed to gravity main blockages from customers' grease and rags, he said.
“We had 12 other less-impactful sanitary sewer overflows during FY 2021 that were small and contained (not reaching into a body of water), totaling 13,000 gallons,” Wise said. “Most of that was actually at a sewer plant that stayed contained on-site in a fenced-in area.”
According to the FDEP, wastewater spills that are 1,000 gallons or more or that may threaten the environment or public health are required to be immediately reported by a utility to the FDEP through a toll-free, 24-hour hotline (1-800-320-0519) known as the State Watch Office. Residents also are encouraged to report any suspected wastewater incidents to the hotline.
On average, the State Watch Office receives two wastewater incident notifications a day from throughout the state, according to the FDEP. It reports that in many cases, wastewater spills are caused by road construction, storms or other factors beyond the control of the wastewater facility.
“Nearly two-thirds of all spills have a volume of less than 10,000 gallons, far less than the volume of a typical backyard swimming pool,” according to the FDEP. “In most cases, wastewater spills can be contained and much of the released volume can be recovered for proper treatment.”
