ST. PETE BEACH, Fla. — Ten years after the Florida Department of Environmental Protection placed the city of St. Pete Beach under consent order for causing wastewater spills, the city has two remaining projects to complete in its multimillion-dollar sewer system overhaul.
Public works director Mike Clarke says the city’s main pump station still needs upgrades. The main pipe that carries sanitary sewage from the island is also aging and needs to be replaced.
"That's going to be a very complicated design because of the subaqueous lengths that we're going to have to drill potentially, to put the pipe in place. And then all of the permits that are going to be needed by the various, federal and state agencies,” Clarke said.
The city’s sewer system woes at one point dragged on for years. After spilling wastewater in 2014, the city dumped thousands of gallons of sewage into the Boca Ciega Bay during Tropical Storm Colin in 2016. The spill laid bare the city’s aging infrastructure and forced a moratorium on development.
“We can’t have any development because we cannot add one more sewer to our system,” said former Mayor Deborah Schechner in 2016.
Since then, the city has invested millions of dollars into upgrades that Clarke says prepared the area for current hotel expansion.
“As we take a look at the growth of Saint Pete Beach, what we did over the last five years is we sized our system’s capacity throughout lift and pump stations and our pipes to be able to handle the density of St. Pete Beach fully built out,” he said.
Upgrading the pump station will cost taxpayers about $6 million, and the pipe will cost a little more than $10 million. The work is expected to be complete withing the next few years.
John Lawrick, who lives next to the main pump station, says he understands it will take time, but it’s not time the city has to waste.
“I know the station is a bit aged now, so even if it can have all the capacity it does…is it rigorous enough to do it 7-by-24 without having some failures?”
As St. Pete Beach expands hotel development, 2 major sewer projects remain
The city's main pump station needs upgrades and the main sewage pipe needs to be replaced.