Municipal water treatment facilities require comprehensive renewal plans to address aging infrastructure, meet new environmental regulations like PFAS removal, and maintain reliable service. The recommended approach involves nanofiltration technology that simultaneously removes PFAS contaminants and softens water, providing long-term flexibility for future water quality changes. Funding such projects requires careful financial modeling, including debt service coverage analysis, rate increase projections, and consideration of alternative funding sources like state revolving loans or utility connections to larger systems. The decision-making process involves evaluating multiple options, including building new treatment facilities versus connecting to existing utility systems, while balancing capital costs, operational expenses, and ratepayer impacts over the project's 30-year lifespan.
Temple Terrace City Council Meeting May 19, 2026追加:
was two uh tennis courts were built uh in '74.
Tennis still booming, needed more courts. So, in 1976, uh the city put out a RFP and authorized the two additional tennis courts at the Whiteway Richland facility to the six courts as it is today. And along with additional lighting and an office with two bathrooms, which is there now. That was in 1976.
That tennis facility there there in the mid to late um '70s was one of the hottest tennis centers in the Tampa Bay area. It's really only one of three, Brandon here and uh Davis Island. And we hosted a lot of different tennis tournaments and events. It was home to uh King High School matches, league play, which also had one of the best historic women's tennis league teams ever with Council Member Fernandez's mom being on that uh one of the that team.
Uh of course, open play.
In uh 1999, uh the city had a uh demand for more courts, and clay tennis courts were really being talked about. So, in 1999, there was a vacant lot next to the family complex uh on uh What's It's off of Gillette. Thank you, Gillette. Couldn't brain fade. Couldn't figure that road out. All right. So, the city bought that land and built six clay courts, and they're they're now. And again, that is a one of the best clay tennis facilities in the Bay area Bay area.
So, that's uh kind of the big timeline on Temple Terrace tennis.
But, I wanted to go back to the resolution uh of the of the City Council, resolution 1672.
And that was to authorize the construction of the four courts behind the Lightfoot Recreation Center. And this is for us city council members, staff out there, city manager staff.
That resolution, and I want to recognize like city council members at that time, a council member Gerard, Valenti, Bullard, Bondy, and Owen. Those names, some of them sound familiar. Mayor George Fee, and the recreation director Ken Boyd at that time.
And what I want to talk about was how sometimes our decisions here at council, staff's ideas make a difference to people.
So, that was a very historic vote. Those courts were built. So, I've got a picture for Not yet, Brian. But I got a picture of what those four courts look like. It's only a corner. I couldn't find any old ones. If you ever played down there, you would know about the office. So, this picture doesn't have the office in it, but I'll show it to you, Brian.
Okay. So, behind that nice young man is a The There's no homes down Richland.
There's no wall there. There's no tennis building. There's no anything. And if you don't know that young man, that's me.
And this is the point I want to make.
Someone made a decision in the city to build tennis courts. I've never played till it was built. I went down there, learned tennis.
From that, I got a job working at those courts.
That got my career started. Brian, second picture.
This is the King High tennis team.
1974. First time King ever had a tennis team was cuz these courts were built.
There were none at the high school.
All right.
Take a guess. Where am I?
I'mma give you a second.
Bottom middle.
Okay. So, that's me. So, that was high school and if that's important. Brian, next picture. Last picture.
King girls tennis team.
Bottom right.
That's my wife of 46 years.
I met her because of King tennis. So guys lady our decisions make a difference.
Made a difference in my life. So that's my historical fact. Very good.
Sorry about that, guys.
>> [applause] >> Well, I don't know who has it next, but that's going to be a tough one to beat.
Yeah, you.
The bar is set pretty high for you. So Well, next up we have a proclamation for National Public Works Week and I'd like to call our Public Works Director Jason Warrenfeldt up to the podium.
Jason, for everything you and your staff do for us, I don't think it can be contained in one proclamation, but we're going to give it a shot. And so uh So it says, "Whereas public works professionals focus on infrastructure, facilities, and services that are of vital importance to sustainable and resilient communities and to the public health high quality of life and well-being of the people of Temple Terrace.
These infrastructure, facilities, and services could not be provided without the dedicated effort of public works professionals who are engineers, managers, and employees at all levels of government and the private sector who are responsible for rebuilding, improving, and protecting our nation's transportation, water supply, water treatment solid waste systems, public buildings, and other structures.
It is in the public interest for the citizens, civic leaders, and children in Temple Terrace to gain knowledge of and to maintain an ongoing interest and understanding of the importance of public works and public works programs in their communities.
Whereas the year 2026 marks the 66th annual National Public Works Week sponsored by the American Public Works Association.
Therefore, I Andrew Ross, by virtue of the authority vested in me as mayor of the city of Temple Terrace, Florida, do hereby set aside May 17th to 20 3rd as National Public Works Week. And Mr. Warnfeldt, would you like to say a few words? Sure.
Thank you, Mayor Ross, city council for presenting this resolution recognition of National Public Works Week.
We sincerely appreciate >> [clears throat] >> the acknowledgement of the debt to the dedicated professionals who work every day to maintain and improve the city's infrastructure and services.
Public Works Week is an important opportunity to highlight the essential [clears throat] contributions of public works employees and the value they bring to the residents and the businesses alike. On behalf of our department team, thank you for your continued support and recognition of the Public Works Week.
Thank you, Mr. Warnfeldt.
>> [applause] >> Okay, 3 2 1.
Thank you.
And to your employees over there, thank you.
>> [applause] >> We have one more. Uh that is for National EMS Week. And you can see that we have a our fire department is here, and we have our assistant chief, Shane Salmon to come up and receive the proclamation.
Good evening, Chief.
Thank you. Whereas this year's National EMS Week theme is EMS Week: Improving Outcomes Together.
Emergency medical services are a vital public service.
The members of the Temple Terrace Fire Department, both firefighters and EMS responders, provide life-saving care for those in need 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Access to quality emergency medical care dramatically improves the survival and recovery rate of those who experience sudden illness or injury.
The emergency medical services system consists of first responders, medical directors, emergency nurses, emergency medical technicians, paramedics, firefighters, educators, administrators, and others.
The Temple Terrace Fire Department's EMT and paramedics engage in thousands of hours of specialized training and continuing education to enhance their life-saving skills.
It is appropriate to recognize the value and the accomplishments of emergency medical services providers by designating emergency medical services week.
Therefore, I, [snorts] Andrew Ross, by virtue of the authority vested in me as mayor of the city of Temple Terrace, Florida, do hereby proclaim May 17th through 23rd as Emergency Medical Services Week. Chief, would you like to say a few words? Sure. Sure. I think you you covered a lot of that.
Um I would like to just at least recognize, kind of like you had pointed out, um you know, it's it's the guys in the back here who are providing these services to our citizens every single day.
Um Our department runs about 5,000 medical calls, like I mean 5,000 calls a year.
About 75% of those are medical calls.
And so, they do a tremendous job. They serve our citizens well. Um our our slogan is is exceeding expectations, and they do that every single day that they put on a uniform and come into our community and provide the services. So, thank you uh to you guys for recognizing us, and thank you for for our [snorts] department. And then, one one last person to recognize is our medical director, Dr. Brooke Shepherd, one of our own citizens within the uh community here. She's a strong leader for our emergency medical services program. and so without her, we wouldn't have the direction that we need. So, thank you. Thank you, Chief, and thank you, guys.
>> [applause] [applause] [snorts] >> Can everyone inch over a little bit this way?
>> [laughter] >> Okay. 3 2 1.
All right, thank you. Thank you. Thanks again.
>> [applause] [snorts] >> Okay. So, next we have approval of the May 5th City Council meeting minutes. If everybody's had an opportunity to review the minutes, is there a motion to approve?
To approve.
Second. Any corrections or adjustments to the minutes?
Seeing none, all those in favor say, "Aye."
>> Aye. Opposed? No nays, minutes are adopted.
Next, we have um persons wishing to be heard on items not listed on the agenda or items on the consent agenda. So, let me take a moment to explain to everybody how this meeting is going to go tonight cuz it's a little um little out of the ordinary the way tonight is going.
This section is for public comments on items not listed on the agenda. So, if you're here and you wish to comment on the water report that we're going to get, this would not be the right time. Um, there will be public comment at We have two presentations. One is on the water treatment proposal.
We will have public comments after that presentation.
The second one involves the financing uh what the possible financing schemes could be, and there will be public comment after that presentation as well.
So, we have three times for the public to um make public comment to the council today.
It also should be noted that concerning the water quality um presentation that we have a town hall meeting next Tuesday at 6:00 at the Lakefoot Center. So, the public uh will have yet another opportunity to kind of digest what gets presented tonight, kind of think about it, make notes, kind of think of some questions, and then we will have the town hall meeting next Tuesday for some additional public engagement.
Uh we do not plan on the council making uh a decision on any of this tonight.
So, there's probably not going to be a vote in the decision because we have the town hall meeting. So, we want to finish um engaging the public on this. So, um anyhow, with all that being said, um this is for public comment for items not listed on the agenda.
Uh we do have forms in the back of the room on the table. Uh we have a 30-minute time limit for this portion of the meeting, although we rarely hit that. Uh if necessary, we continue this portion of the meeting at the end of the meeting to allow um all members of the public to be heard.
We do ask that speakers uh come to the podium and begin with their name and city of residence. And there is a 3-minute time limit imposed on the speakers. We currently have >> [snorts] >> three requests to speak. Uh first up is Mr. Loeb.
Good evening, Mr. Loeb.
>> Good evening, everybody. Charles Loeb, Terrace Park. And I got a miscellaneous group of subjects to talk to you about tonight. Uh first of all, I'm glad it's public service week cuz I do want to compliment the people uh uh Mr. Well uh Mr. Warren Felts uh and the public service staff for pitching in and taking care of the bathrooms in the library.
You don't know how many compliments I've heard about that, and I did want to make sure you all know about that. That's number one.
Number two, tomorrow night is our meeting at Terrace Park Neighborhood Association meeting, where we'll be talking about the Museum of Science and Industry. We're going to [snorts] have someone there from there. I'm willing to take any public any comments from anybody on it. I've gotten a few.
And uh we're going to be discussing it and uh in rather length and all that. And if anybody has anything to say about it, we're going to begin our meeting at the library at six between six and 6:30 p.m.
tomorrow night.
Uh the next thing I have, I'm going to state an opinion.
Uh and I'm going to stick with this opinion.
To me, uh to me what happened in this city with the EPA is and and those private companies is an absolute outrage.
And as far as I am concerned, what would be I view as justice would be for them to reimburse, you know, a good portion of the PFAS money and of the public sa- and of the uh public safety complex.
Again, that's my opinion, and I am entitled to it.
Now, fourthly, I want to talk about Woodmont Charter School.
Uh they made some really significant upgrades or they're planning some for 2020 26 2027.
Uh I gave a list to the city manager of what I noticed, but I don't think it'd be proper for me to tell you, and I certainly couldn't answer the questions that you all might have.
My suggestion to you all is that you all would come and invite them in to come and talk to you.
And they can tell you themselves a little bit more detail what these upgrades are. They're very significant from what I saw on the signs outside walking by. And I think you and the citizens would have be very would be very very interested in them.
Uh finally, uh now I have a little bit extra time.
Uh I was thinking about Memorial Day. We should think about, of course we all been know it's being summer season and so on and so forth, but we should take some time to think about the people gave their lives so we would have freedom today. Thank you and good evening.
>> [clears throat] >> Thank you, Mr. Lobe.
Now we have a couple of very special speakers. We have some young ladies here from the Girl Scout Troop 32608.
And the first one to speak, and where is Mary? Mary, we might need some help with the microphone, I'm not sure. So, if we I'm thinking that Serena stands behind the podium, nobody might be able to see her. So, So, the first speaker is Serena Scott.
And and then we have Genevieve Allender. Are they going to speak together? Yes. Okay.
So, we'll be a little uh fluid with the time, I suppose.
Well, good evening.
See, I told you it was nothing to be nervous about. You guys aren't still nervous, are you?
You shouldn't be. Just talk to us. We're just like regular people, okay?
All right. Um my name is Serena Scott from Troop 32608. These are also the girls in my troop, and we are here because we are working on a badge called Democracy for Cadettes. When we have earned this badge, we will learn how we will have learned new things about our government, how each branch works, and how they work together, and how each piece makes a difference in society.
Step one is finding out about our local government. We are giving three choices in this first step and we chose two.
First, Ms. Cherry Donahue spoke to us about our local government. Mrs. Donahue is a former council member who explained how jobs are done and how elect local elections work. The reason we are here today is to see democracy in action by attending a meeting where the public is giving time to speak and share their thoughts and possibly see how a a vote turns out. Um the rest of the steps to earn this badge will be learning about our state, federal legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government. Now, I would like to introduce Genevieve Allender who would like to give the council some feedback from our troop. Thank you.
Hi, my name is Genevieve Allender. I made a simple survey a couple months ago of what my troop likes about our city.
The The top three things they said were the trees, fun activities, and safety. The other things they wished were better was traffic. When asked what makes our community more likeable, they said, "Number one, safety. Number two, fun activities. And number three, job opportunities." The last thing we asked was if they were to write a letter to city council, what would they say? They said, "Thank you to our first responders and as we grow, keep us feeling small."
We also agreed that Temple Terrace was the number one city in Hillsborough County. Thank you.
Well, thank you. You guys did A TERRIFIC JOB.
>> [applause] >> THANK YOU FOR JOINING us tonight and and uh that's a very insightful project that you have going on. So, thank you, Mrs. Donahue, for taking that on and working with them and in the blink of an eye, they will be up here on this dais as council members. So, very good. So, that is currently all the requests I have to speak at this portion of the meeting. Is there Are there other members of the public who wish to address the council at this time?
Okay, very good. We will move on then.
Uh to our consultant report. This is uh water treatment facilities master plan and Ed Talton, our CHA Consulting Senior Principal Engineer, uh is here to explain.
Good evening.
>> [snorts] >> Thank you.
Mr. Mayor, Mr. Vice Mayor, esteemed council members, uh city clerk, city manager, and city attorney, as well as the citizens of Temple Terrace, it's an honor to be before you tonight. Um one of the things that's in the title, and it's a appropriate week to say this, is uh want to thank uh and it's a great week to thank our public works uh folks for keeping our water running for 40 years, right? Water is a critical resource, and when we open that tap, we expect water to come out, right? And I accredit the uh elected officials for performing this project to keep the water running for another 40 years. So, you talk about actions, this is an action that will keep it going.
All right. Um this was uh uh master plan of your water treatment facilities and supplies, and this is a uh a pretty brief summary of what we found. Um for our objectives when we set out onto the um the the master plan was number one, we want to identify what's needed for your two water plants to keep them running for the next 40 years, right?
Um it improve the product delivery so that we move into the future with with excellent water service going forward as well as as behind us, continuing to meet state and federal regulations.
We also want to meet those new EPA PFAS regulations as well, right? There's a timetable to do that and some big news on that as well.
And PFAS as you know is per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. We went through a little bit of that, but I think everybody's pretty up to speed on what those are.
>> [clears throat] >> We want to select a renewal plan that minimizes the rate impacts to your citizens because treating PFAS and removing it from your water is a pretty expensive endeavor, right? You already know that. And so our plan needs to minimize the rate impacts to the citizens and it's a good thing you have your rate consultant here to follow that up as well. So we kept that in mind throughout this project. And the last objective of the master plan is to provide costs and budgeting going forward to take care of the plant, keep it running, and meet those future regulations. So that was That's the mission of this plan.
>> [clears throat] >> A little bit of background CTA was hired by the city in 2024 and I stood before you at last August in the PFAS town hall and I I really had a good time talking with folks. It's not a great situation to be in, but it was it was really good to hear and absorb what the what the elected officials and the citizens you know really felt from that and we embody that in this project. So we understand everyone's concern and we want to go forward with a plan that that meets not only yours, but the the citizens' objectives. And the mission is to provide that framework for the water treatment and supply going forward. And by framework we mean what facilities are needed, what treatment processes are needed, when the when those things are to be timed, when we need to spend the money.
>> [snorts] >> Uh to keep those moving forward.
Uh CH2M just a quick uh brief thing about CHA. We are a an engineering firm and we provide uh services to cities like Temple Terrace all over the state of Florida, I-4 corridor as well as nationally. And we're we're a firm that's focused on water quality. We're full service and we're local, right? We have a Tampa office. Uh I'm from the Winter Springs office and I grew up in DeLand, Florida. So, um you know, we're we're local to you and we feel like we're a a part of the community.
You know, I had a a 40 slide uh presentation for you tonight, but I understand that, you know, people have important things to do. So, we we boil it down and I'm going to hit you with the top three conclusions from the treatment master plan right now. So, we really viewed this as a three-headed uh challenge. There's there's three big things that we got to address. And um Mr. Vice Mayor, uh the water treatment plants were built just shortly after the tennis court, right? So, >> [laughter] >> they're old. I'm not saying you are, but the for in plant water plant age, they are old and they're nearing the end of their service life. In order to keep those running, they they have to be renewed. And there is good news on that because you don't want to come into a situation and have to remove PFAS in a brand new plant that you just spent a lot of money to build. These things have served the community well and they've lived out their life. So, now is a good time to move to a more efficient process that not only addresses your your, you know, short-term needs, but also your long-term.
Um softening, right? The the water is pretty hard here, right? It's it's it's it's up there on the scale of hardness and our our we need to provide a uh a a softer water to the community to uh improve that product delivery, right?
PFAS uh removal is needed. Uh big news on that today, the the uh deadline got pushed out, but it really hasn't changed anything or the timing of what we need to do. It's taken a little bit of pressure off us, but I don't think that we're really slowing down with the effort to not only renew the plant, but also to remove the PFAS. And so there's there's work to be done that to to meet that 2031 deadline, and there's no real taking your foot off the gas at this point.
And lastly, when we when we treat this, we're going to end up with a concentrated stream of PFAS, and we need to handle that in a in a sustainable manner and deal with that. The The graphic at the bottom shows a little bit of the process that went on for the master plan, and there was a lot of work that went into that, but we're going to get to those three conclusions really quick.
Conclusion number one, the Whiteway is 40-plus That's one of your water treatment plants is 40-plus years old. It There's substantial rehabilitation needed. We've toured the plant, we walked all through it. We've There's electrical needs, there's structural needs, there's there's treatment needs. So it it has it has major needs, and it water is a critical uh service, and you really can't take the risk of of operating a plant that's near the end of its life, you know, when you're when you're dealing with a critical service, right? You wouldn't send your fireman out in a in a, you know, 40-year-old fire truck, right, to to put out the fire. So same with water.
>> [snorts] >> Um, just not even considering PFAS or softening, uh, that the Whiteway plant needs $30 million to get it back up to speed, right? So that's what's needed, not even thinking about PFAS. And so same with Sunningdale, that is a 30-year-old facility, and we've chosen to efficiently convert that to a booster station so that we don't have to upgrade that treatment process, too. The consolidation of the treatment into the Sunningdale from the Sunningdale facility to the Whiteway facility provides you a little bit of a lot of operational efficiency and it's going to make it less costly for the and and minimize those rate impacts.
A little bit of graphic here. What you see is a 3D rendering some of our folks did of your existing plant and [snorts] we we color coded the scoring on the the treatment facility. This is the Whiteway plant on the left and red is it's about to fall down, right? So red is a critical you know need that that process is is at the end of its life and followed up with the filtration that's right behind it, right? So you see that and on the right is a little what we call a um a dear deterioration curve. It's like any asset. They deteriorate rate over time, right? Like your I don't know, your tennis courts, right? So you need to you need to paint those tennis courts. You need to resurface them occasionally. So you have to spend money to get it back up to to serviceability and fortunately for you we we've we're at a point where it really makes good sense and it's a good time to spend that money and and improve those plants.
So this this is this is it's it's not a it's not great news, but it is good news the situation you're in, right? We're we're starting from with a with a blank canvas and we can improve that plant to you know up to you know a state of the art treatment level.
All right, so we go to the second head of the of the challenge and that is uh PFAS, right? And the and what we need to treat. Uh so the um we have we exceed the PFAS and it's um it's a it's not only a city of Temple Terrace problem, it's a regional problem. It's it's a national problem.
It's a global problem, right? We're in the same boat. I had a in the in the report there's a there's a map from UF Health that shows the proliferation of PFAS in the state of Florida's groundwater that we drink, right? It's It's ubiquitous, right? Every Every urban center is is loaded, not loaded, but has PFAS in it. And And that's that's the situation we're in, right?
We're not as bad as some of the other folks.
We're in the low parts per trillion.
There you know, people that live near a Mohawk Carpet, Bainbridge, Georgia, they're in the thousands and tens of thousands of parts per trillion. They're you know, they're really up the creek.
We have a a little bit of PFAS that we got to get out. It's not It's not a major catastrophe. It's not a major health issue yet, but it's something that the EPA has said we have to address.
>> [clears throat] >> Um Let's go. We also have hardness. Um your your water is considered very hard, and I'm sure the citizens know that and probably most of them have have softeners as we talked about last August. And And we have a chance now to improve that citywide. And so we city and our staff their staff have set a a goal of less than 150 parts per million of hardness, calcium and magnesium, and that'll make the water you know, very high quality and and easy to you know, wash your clothes and take showers and things like that. So that will pretty much take away the need for softeners home softeners as well.
We have future contaminants to worry about. More microplastics. Um uh pharmaceuticals, those things that the EPA is looking at coming down the pipe.
So the city staff wanted to make sure that whatever we choose to do, that we can address those future contaminants coming down the pipe as well.
Um when we talked there's a there's a few uh uh processes that remove PFAS. Some of them one's called granular activated carbon.
One's called ion exchange. Those are the Those are the lower cost easier um >> [clears throat] >> ones. and unfortunately uh we did pilot testing at the plant on your water. We also did it in the laboratory and those easier lower ones did not remove as much P Foss as we wanted to and it it it also made it costly because you had to regenerate the carbon and the ion exchange, throw it out and regenerate it far too often. So that made the operational costs high.
But the other thing is those processes don't soften. So um a lime softening >> [clears throat] >> uh uh let's say a a lime softening does not remove P Foss and in this case we identified a membrane process that actually does the softening and removes the P Foss, right? So you when we did the cost and you can see them up on the side there uh in the lower table just to rehab your your plant with lime, no P Foss removal would cost $36 million and that's the the bottom right table.
If we put in a nano filtration plant that can soften and remove P Foss, that's actually a similar cost. It's a little bit higher operationally and you can see at the bottom line uh you know the just just the lime softening will cost you two bucks a thousand gallon.
The nano filtration costs you 225 for a small increment more, you get the P Foss removal also. So from that standpoint when we had to remove both of them, it it almost became a no-brainer that nano filtration is was the way to go and nano filtration is a membrane process. They call it membrane softening. It's proven technology up and down the coast of Florida. It's used widely and it's it's a it's a good fit for your source water.
So you know we took a route to get there.
We tried the lower cost things first, right? We wanted to get keep rates low and they just didn't work well enough and good thing we've got something that killed two birds with one stone, right?
And kept the cost at at something that's reasonable, let's say.
None of these costs are reasonable. I'm going to admit that, but compared to trying to do both and and it's going to save us money. So and produce a water that um meets not only current regulations, but also future. Up in the right-hand table, you can see the comparison of the GAC and the ion exchange. And yes, so they all three of those remove PFAS.
Um GAC and ion exchange do not remove hardness, right? So okay, well they removed one, but not both.
Nanofiltration removes both. Uh the future contaminant, limited on the GAC, limited on the ion exchange.
Uh the nanofiltration, high. The other thing is these membranes are custom-designed and the membrane manufacturers are are working on different uh molecular designs that that remove PFAS and only some of the hardness. So the the bottom line is you can change out membranes and change your your treatment process without having to, you know, uh major cost of infrastructure. So it's a flexible process that you can in the future put tighter membranes in or looser membranes should the need occur.
So um And and lastly um long-term flexibility, that I just mentioned that and sustainability. You know, it let us to to a an easy conclusion that nanofiltration is the is the way to go for the city.
>> [clears throat] >> Oops.
All right. Oops, I went too far there.
Okay, there we go.
All right, just uh as a check, right?
And everyone asked for this and this is a our due diligence. And credit to your staff that went and met with the city of Tampa and Hillsborough County on hey, can we connect to your water systems and avoid a major cost and and use your water? Well, you know, they have PFAS, too, right? And there's a major capital cost to get their water from them to us, and it's something in the 30 to 40 million-dollar range, which would be the cost of a new plant, right?
And that would give you, you know, that would give you uh >> [clears throat] >> complex interagency and disinfectant changes. You'd be changing from free chlorine to chloramines, which is a big big problem and a lot of hassle for your to to maintain that. Natu- nitrification is something that occurs in chloramine systems, and you you really don't want to deal with that.
Um we have we mentioned the substantial infrastructure costs, and the bulk just the bulk purchase cost is $4 a a thousand gallon, and we just looked at that we can treat the water for 225 a thousand gallon, right? So, you you This is from the running the numbers, connecting to the to you neighboring utilities is is the costliest alternative. It is the highest cost option, and it also gives you uh a potential for higher costs in the future that you may not have full control of.
So, at that point, you know, I I certainly did their due diligence, and we evaluated the the results, and it's a decision we we we checked. Now, if I flip back up to the top, and this occurred at the um >> [clears throat] >> the public meeting, there was a engineer that lives in your city, and she was a very smart engineer and and stated that, "Why don't we go to a well field that does not have PFAS, right? We can find some PFAS-free water somewhere, right?" So, as you mentioned, USGS did a study, and there's there's some monitoring wells that go a little bit deeper than yours, and so we want to look at those in the future going forward. And we also proposed an exploratory well to test deeper into the aquifer even than the monitoring wells go, and to look for uh cleaner PFAS-free water. That's worth a try, right? And we also need some additional supply if we're going to consolidate the treatment at at Whiteway. So, uh that's something that we we did recommend, and uh I think it's something that would be worthwhile. And if if not, we can repurpose that well for something else. So, um there's that's one of the recommendations of the report. And and that is that falls in the category of non-treatment, but if you go deeper, you may actually need to treat that water, too, right? So, it's it you know, it's a you may find no PFAS, but you might find high iron, high sulfide, high hardness again, and you'll you'll have to soften that water as well. So, go you there's no panacea here going to a a crystal clear water that um that you know, may or may not exist, but it's worth a check.
Um let's go into the next one.
All right, we're at conclusion number three.
Good thing we didn't do the 40-slide idea. Um PFAS destruction, right? You when you concentrate uh the water with the nanofiltration or the reverse osmosis pro uh process, you create a concentrated stream that's loaded with calcium because you took it out of the water and PFAS, right? So, you have a stream of water that's that's high in both of those. And occasionally those will get treated as hazardous waste, and most every um membrane softening or RO treatment plant up and down the coast of Florida has a deep injection well. So, that's one option. Um we we um went with your staff to visit two of our plants nearby, City of Clearwater and Vero Beach. I kind of consider that a sister city to you, but both of those have deep well deep injection wells, right? Now, there are other options, and there is some emerging destruction technologies, right, that are coming out of the gate that haven't gone to full scale applications on a municipal system. And really, as engineers, we can't use something that that's not been proven full scale. So, that's that's But, we are monitoring those and looking on the board, we even talked with some of the vendors. And occasion- down the down the road, we'll probably send some of your water concentrated up to some of those vendors to see if they can have uh lot destroying those. And those processes uh read like a uh you know, a sci-fi technology. They They use sound, you know, of sonolysis to to blast apart um a a 2,000° furnace to that's that's the way to break this PFOA apart, right? That's how it's tough it is. Uh they use um photochemical oxidation, things like that that that, you know, to to destroy and blow those apart. There's the technology's evolving, and there's uh hopefully in in 2 years we'll have something a a silver bullet that we can move forward with. And maybe we'll even avoid going to the the deep well. But, that's not that doesn't exist yet, and we need a plan that we can move forward with. And that plan is proven. It's it's what every other membrane softening and RO plant in the state of Florida does, right? So, uh Stuart just just built one, the state of Stuart. So, just a little cost comparison. You can see um a a deep injection well in the in the table there is is pretty expensive, up in the $25 million range. And um if we boil that down to uh cost per thousand gallons, that comes out about 73 cents a thousand gallons. So, that's that's a a big ticket. But, if you look at the at the aqueous electrostatic concentrator, right, which is uh sort of a a proven technology at this point, they have a couple applications, that's $1.94 per thousand gallon, right?
So, it's it works, but it's way more expensive, right? There's another one that um has a 1 MGD plant, 1 million gallon a day plant up in Cary, North Carolina on an industrial site. They They do foam fractionation and a and a type of destruction.
>> [snorts] >> You know, that one is more in the range that we're looking for, right? Maybe 25 cents, a third of the cost of a deep well, right? And and potentially we could reuse the water in the future, but that's just that it's just not there yet, right? And so that we went with the proven plan and and the proven technology to move forward with from this master plan. We'll be taking this master plan and moving into, you know, design and implementation, but the again, the mission of this was to set out a budget for for you guys to move forward and and identify how much it cost. So your rate folks can you know, work the numbers from there.
>> [clears throat] >> All right.
Uh You know, we talked about the the current condition of the plants and and there are Both plants do comply, but they are not capable of of meeting the the PFAS and the and the softening at this moment. They they just cannot they just cannot cut that and the risk is is too high to continue to operate those plants going forward for too much longer. So that that's that's the situation and it's a great again, it's great timing, but it it it more than PFAS, the the risk at the plants may be the driver that pushes you forward faster, you know, so that it's not a oh, we're okay, take the foot off the gas. It is a critical it's a critical service and it should be treated as such.
All right, we're going to get into the bad news, which is the the estimated capital cost and capital cost, they include the equipment, they include um the contractor who installs the equipment, they include the taxes, the the insurance, the bonding, the the surveying, the design, you know, the um everything that's needed to put that project together. Contingency, we want to have a little bit of contingency in there so that we, you know, understand those and frankly, what's happened in in last six or eight months has probably even pushed costs higher than than, you know, what we're what we're, you know, seeing here. So, um what we're looking at, we divided your um your plan into four projects. We call them project A, B, C, and D. And we've got some priority uh a priority repair at the plant that we just is a is a critical thing item that needs to be addressed now. And so, that's a small item and that's easy to do.
Um project B is the exploratory well.
And and that has the um we're also pushing up against our water use permit.
So, we've got to negotiate with the uh water management district to increase that water use permit because we're going to need some extra water. Uh nanofiltration and membrane processes, they work on a recovery rate from 80 to 90%. That means every 100 gallons you push through there, you get 90 gallons of product out. So, we're going to lose maybe 5 to 10 to 15% of our water and we need to account for that in our water use permit with the district. So, that's a that's on the list. And um project C is the electrical upgrades for the treatment plants. Um those were in uh I'm going to say dire shape. I'm not I I don't want to use the word dire, but they're they're just old equipment and there's some motor control centers that should they fail, the lead time to get a new motor control center is 1 year, right? You could order one right now and 1 year later you'd have it. And so, you'd have to have some folks out there manually operating the plant to keep the plant running and that's a big risk right there. So, that that's something that that we want to move forward with because um I don't know. I I used to work construction, right? And the first folks that come through are the electrical uh when you're building a building, they come through and set the boxes, they set the wires and all that. So, you send your electrical team out there first. He they set the electrical system up. The the plant we want to look at potentially a second feed uh from TICO to um increase some reliability in a loop around the plant and create a system that that will serve you going ahead 40 years at at the staff keeps the staff safe.
Remember the the the young ladies their priority was safety electrical is a big safety issue.
Um the last the last project is the Whiteway nanofiltration and the concentrate management with within which in this case we've we've put in deep deep injection well.
And that's the the way to move forward.
So you can see you know [clears throat] hopefully things come in a little lower than this but we're looking at about $66 million of capital cost for Whiteway and and five or six million for Sunningdale just to keep that operating and and convert it to a booster in the future. And you're looking at a total of about $72 million of capital cost. Now um from a schedule standpoint we've got a little bit of leniency on the 2031 but again that's one driver. I think the other driver is to is to get the plant renewed. You know and one of the things that we did look at was some interim treatment tasks that we could put in to bridge that gap between now and when we build a a new treatment plant. So those items you know could span from a temporary granular activated carbon columns. We could fast track a nanofiltration skid.
We could um do a few other things that that would help bridge that gap but the the the lesson here is those nanofiltration skids probably are a year to build those as well. So and equipment and the electronics on that as well. So the thing is those those items also take time. So there is no quick quick fix on this. The and one One things that idea that come up was uh let's let's fix our lime softening uh structure out there and let's get it by softening and it's that's throwing good money after bad. Uh so, that that thing is in such bad shape, it's much better plan to put your money into a new technology and something that will get both cover both those things and trying to band-aid or patch up something that's just uh you know, absolutely near near the end of its life. So, um uh and again, it is a it is a opportune time to to come in there and we we've looked at cost savings items like using the existing building. We just were out at the plant today and we think that's got a nice the one that the staff is moving from from that building to the to the new building up front, we potentially think that that building could be used and and save some capital cost. We also uh want to reuse some of the pump stations uh uh and some of the guts and and wells around there that that we can um you know, fit this nanofiltration in pretty seamlessly into your plant. So, there's there's items we're working on to save costs and those will be flushed out better in the um in the coming implementation phases.
All right.
Enough of the bad news. All right, so, what we called it is a is a water treatment renewal plan because these plants do need renewal, they need renewed infrastructure, they need renewed electrical, and they need renewed treatment that will meet those those goals that the city has set for ourselves. So, on the on the right side uh in the middle there is a is a view of what we we plan to do at Whiteway and that involves adding the nanofiltration uh systems in and uh potentially some concentrate management and storage components that will help further concentrate that and send it to its final destination. Uh looking at the schedule, um the things that we really need to start on now are electrical renewal, um SCADA. We need to get those motor control centers uh ordered, you know, and uh laid out ordered so that in a year we can [laughter] get new ones and ready to go. And while we're at it, we're going to set the new electrical up for the new plant, right? It's a It's just like in construction, the electrical folks are going to come through. That's going to save you money because nowadays general contractors are are are in high demand and they're and they're charging high markups on subcontractors, right? And an electrical, if we hire them directly as a separate project, that'll probably save you 10 to 20% of cost right there by by a hiring a direct contractor.
Um, [clears throat] reliability, that we've mentioned that.
We need to get a valve fixed at the plant so that we can increase the capacity.
The uh next year, we're going to be focused on implementing the the nanofiltration.
We're going to be modernizing the plant and we're going to be uh really diving into the concentrate management. If If where would we put a deep well? Uh, you know, if if we're going to put one of those, we're pretty uh uh we've got a really good hydrogeologic uh subconsultant that's that's uh um already spoken with the city, not under contract, but that's that's ready to get moving on this soon. We There needs to be talks with the the district and we need to get those items moving.
>> [snorts] >> Um, Sunningdale in in 2028, um that that will begin its its renewal and its transition to to just becoming a booster station instead of a a water plant, but we need to keep that that online until the plant is fully fully up and running, the new plant at Whiteway.
Um, from a future capacity standpoint, we if we retire Sunningdale, it puts us in a little bit of a jam, so we've got to increase the capacity at Whiteway to make up for that. And that's going to cost a little bit of money as well.
That's in baked in the plan, but um I think it's it's well worth it and it's well worth the efficiency of having the treatment in one place and having the concentrate without having to ship the concentrate across the city to a you know a a common management site.
And from there, 2028, 29, 30, construction you know, will will get moving and you'll have a brand new state of the art treatment plant that can handle whatever's coming at you. So, that is that is the uh the recommended renewal plan. Um that is not all we have because we understand that >> [clears throat] >> that you know, this is a big cost and a big hit and there is funding available.
And so, part of our report identified some of the funding avenues.
We've also got others in the fire and um that [clears throat] that we're going to be going after and it's it's going to evolve potentially um state and federal appropriations through legislation. And we're we're highly skilled at that as well as your your rate folks and some of the other financial folks that work with your public works department. So, that that is our our really our you know, our next task is to find money. The gentleman said it himself, right? You know, we shouldn't be paying for this if somebody else polluted our water, right? So, you know, we need to we need to go out there and we are going to pay for it, but we're going to try to minimize the amount we pay for. So, in that that some of that everybody else is racing for the same deadline and as sooner we can get to the those funding allocations uh locked in, you know, the the the the better off we'll be from a rate impact standpoint. So, that that's all I had for you today and I just want to say um a credit to your your public works staff because they were they were really partners with us.
The whenever I do a master plan and I've done a lot of them, >> [snorts] >> it's not my plan, it's yours.
So, that's what we tried to make this.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Tilton. So, we're going to open it up for public comments. I currently only have one request, but um assuming there'll be more in. Let me just explain everybody how this goes.
We'll open it up for public comments uh just like the previous public comment section. Everybody gets 3 minutes per speaker. We do ask like before that you come to the podium, state your name and city of residence.
You guys will jot down the questions. It won't be one person comes up, ask a question, and they answer it, and then the next We We'd be here all all week.
So, we'll jot down the questions. All right, after public comment is done, then the council members will ask their questions.
All right, and then the uh presenter or our staff or whoever's relevant will get back up and try to respond to the questions and comments to make sure everybody has their questions answered as well as the council member questions.
Um and then the council may have some discussion uh at that point, but that's council discussion. That's not community discussion. That's at the town hall. So, okay? So, at this point um there are the forms at the back of the room. You don't have to But right now all I have is one, and that's from uh Chris Barkman. Mr. Barkman.
Thank you.
Chris Barkman. I've lived in Temple Terrace for 40 years this October. First 18 were in Raintree, where we have Tampa water I have Tampa water, which has much lower PFAS levels.
It's not as hard. Moved across the street. 22 years later, we got a water problem.
When I came [clears throat] in here this evening, I was initially going to talk about the water softening.
And in reading the report, it appears like we haven't had water softening in the city of Temple Terrace in almost 2 years.
I kind of blame that on deferred maintenance, no maintenance at all.
And then I started thinking about the problem from a 10,000 foot level. You got two primary people on this project.
That gentleman right there and this one right here.
They can't be running around chasing low-hanging fruit that comes from assignments and expect them to take care of this.
This is the critical project in Copperas right now. It's not a police and fire station out on Harney.
It's nothing else but this. This is critical.
In the report the gentleman cited the 72.6 million, but that didn't include the 20 to 25 million for the deep well.
So, are we dealing with 72 or 95 or 97?
And then in another portion of the report, they cited 125 million with 88 for Whiteway and 37 for Sunny Dale. So, that needs to be cleared up.
The big question I've got is this. The city knew of this, at least someone in the city knew of this back in 2024.
Here we are in 2026, we're still drinking the same water.
We're going to go to 2029, 2030, or maybe 2031 before anything actually gets done in treating this stuff. The closer you get to 2031, the supply chain problems are going to grow.
And that lead time that might have been a 1-year or 2-years to get some equipment in there is going to double and the prices are going to go through the roof.
I asked at the town hall meeting last August about interim mitigation methods that could be done.
The consultant said, "Oh, the lead times were horrendous." And then I gave him the name of a company in Kansas that had 2 weeks lead time to get plat uh plat uh trailer mounted units that could handle 5 MGD.
And he said, "Oh, yeah, that's correct."
I think we need to look at some interim measures right now because people can't be drinking this water, which is identified in their own report as possible cancer-causing, for the next 5 years.
Thank you.
Mr. Lowe. Charles Lowe.
I'm Charles Lowe, Terrace Park. And I actually have just two questions. Uh number one, uh is this going to be all this information going to be online available to the public before next week?
Uh so they can read it and all No, it's both 13A and 13B. And the second question, I admit I'm a little confused when looking at the $72 million figure that you're all talking about. I'm not sure if that includes just the uh just the water treatment plants or that includes the water treatment plants and the PFAS as well. Thank you.
Are there other members of the public who wish to comment?
Okay, council members' questions.
>> [snorts] >> Okay, so I I I have a couple of questions and one is my understanding is that the Temple Terrace area, we have no direct contaminant. We don't have a specific polluter. It's basically the PFAS PFOs are in the rainwater at this point, so they filter down into the aquifer. And is that what makes dropping the wells deeper less potentially cost-effective?
Not instead of spending expending that money uh to drop the wells deeper, we should just go ahead and plan on treating the water with the current depth of the wells.
Oh, good question. And and that that is the So if we found PFAS-free water, right, it still might need some treatment in other categories. And we still might end up um spending the same amount of money Money, one single supply well is in the five to seven million dollar range. So, you just think one supply well, that's that's five to seven million dollars you just spent, right? And and in hopes of what you're going to get.
Conversely, your existing wells are are pretty much a good nanofiltration feed.
They do have PFAS, but they're low >> [clears throat] >> in um turbidity, they're low in hydrogen sulfide, they're low in iron, and they're they're low in the things that would foul up membranes. So, they actually make a really good and they're fresh. There's no salt in them. When we go deeper, we're going to hit some salt.
We know that already. We we did Clearwater's wells. And so, um that that's that that is an option to just go ahead and treat the wells that you have. We do think one exploratory well is worthwhile. And if we do that, we think we can get that funded under the um under the district and the FDEP's alternative water supply funding grant.
So, if we could [snorts] get that funded and and not have to pay for it, we we think we could get that for, you know, pennies on the dollar. So, that that that is worthwhile to see what else is down there. And um uh if it doesn't pan out as a supply well, it potentially would set up for your deep well. So, it would be the first leg of your deep well. So, that's where we would not waste the money doing that, but we would we would do it in a way that if that well did not work out, we could use it for uh a deep injection well. Okay. So, um you talked about needing to increase capacity at the Whiteway Treatment Plant if Sunnyside becomes the the booster as your recommendation.
Is there right now there are wells that feed Sunnyside? Is there not a way to use those wells versus adding capacity to the current wells that we have feeding Whiteway. There is and but what it would take is um your two your wells are your well fields are like this. So, in order to get Sunningdale wells over to Whiteway, we'd need a pipe to go over there and that pipe might be two or two or three million dollars as well.
So, there's it's not free to get it over there. So, the the thought was, "Hey, let's look at at a well near Whiteway to avoid that cost and and potentially find a better source. So, that that that's a a question that you know, um uh we weighed heavily and we didn't recommend this uh lightly and we we do think again that we could get funding for this. We're going to call it an alternative water supply well. It you know, Tampa Bay Water came about because they don't want any more fresh well fresh water wells, right? So, the district is going to say, "Yeah, you can drill a new well, but you're going to go down to the lower Floridan into the salty water." And we're going to go, "Oh, you know, okay.
We could potentially switch some of our wells over to another side, but then again, you it might be cheaper just to run the pipe over just like you you proposed." So, those are some details that are going to get worked out in implementation in the design, but um we think the recommendation is is good and firm and if we can get that funding and move forward and get a well drilled [clears throat] for uh for uh you know, a uh uh as part of an alternative water supply grant, then we we we feel like we'd know what's down there and we would have addressed that concern. Maybe we do find, you know, the panacea of clean water down there, you know, but that's a possibility. So, as well, the the existing um uh monitoring wells in the city that the USGS did back in the day, tho- those are potentially That's pretty cheap to go sample those wells and flush them out and pull and just see what's down there.
That'll give us a better idea as well.
So, we we've talked this through with probably the best hydrogeologist in the state and we think the plan is is is good and and um I think it's it's uh it it's something that's in the city's best interest. Your the alternative is always on the table, right? To to pull those Sunningdale wells over to to Whiteway. That that's on the table. And during design or we don't get the grant and it's lower cost to just pull those Sunningdale wells over to Whiteway then then that you know, that's a that's a that's a good option. Okay, so then um I have a couple questions about the actual Whiteway treatment plant and that is is that site large enough to handle being the only treatment plant for the full city and uh potentially future growth.
Oh, sure. And that uh the site is in is um it is big enough. That's the answer. And the the beneficial thing about nanofiltration, it's relatively compact as far as a treatment system is concerned, right? It it's much smaller than your lime softening plant, right? And and we're going to be demolishing that lime softening plant, so we'll have more room as well and you probably get some good scrap metal money out of that, but um so from the capacity standpoint um uh we we feel that it it it's better to have it at one plant and um we feel that you do have enough room there. Here's the here's the details of it. There's a single one single 16-in pipe running through Whiteway, right?
That that runs through the plant and it has a capacity of 5.00 million gallon per day, right? We we can't get any more out of that 16-in plant. But luckily for us, all all good treatment plants have two trains, right?
You don't want to rely on one single point of failure and right now Whiteway has a big single point of failure, that one 16-in pipe. So, the plan is and this was you know, suggested at the behest of one of the city staff. We want two trains that go through and we're going to lay a parallel 16 through the entire plant so that we can leave the existing plant running, put the new pipe in and have the two trains that give us potentially six and even higher. You know, in theory you could get 10 MGD out of that. You know, but you probably wouldn't push it that far. So, you you could go up in capacity and membranes are modular. So, if we leave space in a building to put another module of membranes in, then that's what you do and you size your header pipe for the future. So, that that'll be decisions that you know, that are made based on you know, the capacity that you're actually needing.
>> Okay, so then my my last question has to do with the cost. Yes. And I know that there were multiple recommendations. I mean, the the report was 218 pages. So, I know that there were multiple recommendations, but ultimately the one you presented tonight was the number one choice being at least in the in your recommendation to be cost-effective and handle the the needs. So, that 72 million, would that provide all of the cost, at least as we know today based on today's estimation, to uh renew the plant because it's at the end of its life, but also to meet the needs for the PFAS uh remediation as well. Is that the 72 million the full encompassing cost for the full project?
>> It does. The only other cost that's out there is you're going to increase your operation and maintenance cost. And just to answer the other yours and the other gentleman's question, in the 72 million there's a line item for 26 million that says concentrate management. And that is the deep injection well. So, we labeled as as such because it may give us some flexibility to find a a lower cost in the future. So, but that is the actual cost for deep well. Um uh gentleman here just we we just put one of those in in Stuart, Florida, a deep well. We know exactly what they cost, right? So, um and you know there So, from that standpoint, um your second question again?
Well, what I I just wanted to make sure that when we were looking at that price, that that was encompassing the entirety of the project, not that there wouldn't be I understand it's an estimate based on today's construction cost, but I'm talking about just the expectation.
>> That covers everything. And the last point, the the number that was in the um the funding document in the appendix, that was a present worth value that did cover all the additional O&M that would occur over the life of the plant. So, that's why that was put in there because, you know, that those are those are costs that the city will have to bear through rate payers. So, from that standpoint, we the the our sub our funding sub consultant put that number that was the present worth, which is your capital cost plus your uh your your annual cost smashed up into the present. So, that that's a a summary of all the costs, both capital and operating. The $72 million is the capital cost. The 120-something number in the back, that's a that's a present worth value that does include the additional um operation cost for the nanofiltration. So, it what happens it's it's got a little higher pressure than what you're running now, and you have to replace the membranes every so often.
You have to clean them, things like that. And it's just a uh uh it has a little higher operations cost than than a lime softening, but it removes PFOs, right? So, you know, you you get that benefit, and you you're you're still going to have to pay for it through the through the operating cost as well, so.
Um I hope that answers the question.
Councilman Yeah, thank you, Mayor. Okay, I have a couple. So, other than having two trains in the plant, what else do you plan to do to keep our service going during these couple years of renovating that plant? Uh all right. So, there we did look at other options and and the gentleman's right. We could bring skids out there to to um um to to treat the PFAS, but what with [snorts] facing $72 million, the the better way to do it is expedite the the addition of the nanofiltration.
Your plant is is ready to add that in, but first off, we got to get the electrical taken care of, the bubble.
We thought about putting some granular activated carbon in your filters, right?
So, that we could we could run through there and remove little bit more PFAS, but that does nothing for the hardness, right? So, that you know, and and the decision to not put a dollar into the to the lime softening process is is a good one. We we we could, but that's that's money that you're not going to get back and you're you're much better served by accelerating the the implementation of this this more robust process into your system. It's It's not like we have to go out there and build a giant tank or or you know, or giant pipes. We've got a building that we can potentially fit this in ready to go.
We've got a pump station that we can modify to get this in. So, there's there's ways to expedite this um you know, going forward that that don't waste the taxpayers and the ratepayers' money, right? So, we don't we don't want to do that. We're facing a a major capital, you know, um mountain that we have to climb and we need to put our capital towards the solution, right? Not a not a band-aid that's going to you know Let's say not work.
Very well.
>> [laughter] >> So that getting the lime softening unit back up and running would take 3 to 4 million dollars. We had the we had the manufacturer of the lime softening come out there and give us estimates on how to get that back running, right? We we tried everything. We tried all the low we tried to pull all of the low-hanging fruit. So from that standpoint, that there are there are ways to handle this, but the the best way is to move this forward as rapidly as you can. Put the money that you would you would pay towards you know a mobile treatment unit into expediting the the the electrical, get this plant safety even operate for your operators and move forward with this nanofiltration, you know, addition. So Okay, thank you. I got three more.
Um With this system, how many how much more PFAS from the wells will this handle?
You mentioned that we could keep going up double, triple, 10 times. I mean, when would we come to the end of this if the groundwater keeps getting worse over time? Yeah and and the through the project we we haven't seen the PFAS increase too much. The the hardness has increased in the last 3 to 4 years and somebody asked the question of your your wells, right? Your your your wells are relatively shallow and they are under the influence of surface water, meaning the Hillsborough River. So it they are under not only other groundwater flow, they're also under the influence of the Hillsborough River.
It's a the the USGS study said it takes 10 years to get from the river to your wells and that's a lightning fast time in in well, you know, well age. You know, usually it takes a 100 years, a 1,000 years to get from a river to a well, right? You know, so but this takes 10 years and I don't know if the PFAS is, you know, where it's coming from.
That that's, you know, at at this point if you look at that UF health map, it's it's it's everywhere, right? It's it's you know, and we're we're facing it and the thing we have to do is circle the wagons and get it out of our water. To answer your question, um we're we're we're we're pretty certain that we could handle what what increases would come our way in the in the next 40 years, let's say that. So, you know, unless there's something that happened that, you know, we don't know about, but even that said, there there's ways to handle that, too. So, it it it if if that the nanofiltration is the most flexible way to handle this, right? So, we can change the membrane out if the if the water quality changes and in fact Clearwater had to do that after a certain amount of time. Their water quality changed really rapidly and we had to adjust their membrane um uh types and pressures to adjust for that changing water. And that's down in the lower Floridan. So, even, you know, even the lower Floridan aquifer can change rapidly. So, this is the this is the process that that can handle that has the flexibility to handle future water quality changes.
Okay, two more. Uh one uh with Sunnydale closing and and everything going out of Whiteway, do we have the infrastructure distribution infrastructure to get the water out of of the plant to the neighborhoods? That that's one of our um first missions and recommendations in this report is to take a quick look at that. One of the things uh we need to do is uh see whether we've got to get the water from Whiteway to the storage tank, right? The the the both of them, China Berry and Telecom, right? The you have storage tanks out in your distribution in function. Currently, uh Sunnydale functions as a peaking facility, right? So, we've got a little constriction at Whiteway at the moment, and that's that priority project to get rid of that constriction. So, once that constriction is a is away, we can get the full 4 MGD 5 MGD capacity out of Whiteway, and and we're we're we'll just have to crunch those numbers. So, that is a a minor engineering study that needs to be performed to confirm that.
Okay, thank you. And the last one, I think, is for staff, and you may not know it off the top of your head, but if this uh with this project, are there any projects that are currently on our 5-year capital plan uh that would come out, like in what rewiring an area or something?
You don't have to answer now, but that's a question I would have.
Yeah, you you're talking rewiring electrical?
>> know if I mean, there may be rewiring of the plant in his in year five of our long-range plan that I don't know about or anything. I'm just saying, is there something that's included in this project that we may have already in our plan that we can remove?
So, I I think the uh this plan, as you you can hopefully see tonight, is is pretty comprehensive.
Uh, we will Jason and I will talk as to whether there's anything else in terms of the entire water utility that will we may have to move to, which we do every year. I mean, the council knows when we come with a capital project, we we move projects around depending on the circumstances that given year.
Um, so, we'll we'll get back to the council on that. Okay, thank you. That's it, Mr. Mayor.
Councilmember? Thank you, Mayor. Um, I got a couple questions. First, I'm a little confused. If we're going to basically shut down Sunny Dale, correct?
>> [snorts] >> We're going to convert it to a booster pump station. So, it's going to take water from White Whiteway and boost it down the road to the to the nearest storage tank, right? So, it will convert from a water plant where it has wells to a something that that had up pressure out to your distribution system to provide pressure service. So we're to cap the wells that feed Sunnydale. Well, that and that's that's dependent on if we need the wells or not. So yeah, so that that's Okay, well so see either way if we cap the wells and that's fine, but if we don't cap the wells and we need that for additional volume, then we're going to still have to run pipe from Sunnydale wells that location over to Whiteway.
>> Yep. Correct? Yes. Okay. Then what would be wrong with just taking the the pumps that are there and forcing that into into the into the Whiteway plant? Okay. And then that way we don't have to go back to to Swift Mud for additional pumping capacity through Whiteway.
Uh so using the Sunnydale pumps to pump back to Whiteway?
>> Yeah. Well water. Well well water before you know to treat it at I mean we're if the if we're going to keep it there, we still have to have pipes that's going to take it from Whiteway to Sunnydale to China China Berry or whatever. Sunnydale doesn't have treatment that that I understand.
>> You're right. So so but yes, if you if you extended a pipe from the you could you could potentially use the existing well pumps to get over to Whiteway, but you would need a pipe to get there. But Right. Okay, that's that's I'm a little confused of how that how that logistics going to work, but that's that's something we can discuss further. So that's the raw water going there and then we need to finish water coming back, right? So you got you Correct. And I so I mean but if if it's a booster pump we're still going to have to have the finished water coming from Whiteway to Sunnydale and then Sunnydale it's natural network out to the to the other areas.
>> Correct. Okay. So we're still going to have some kind of a pipe there. Yes.
Okay.
I I I didn't get that from from reading here, but I may have missed that.
Interim the interim PFAS we have residents who are very concerned about it.
Well, how could it logistically be integrated into what we've got now in existence while we're working on the new trains and so forth to help mitigate the PFAS levels? We As the gentleman spoke to earlier, you could bring in and other utilities are doing this. You could bring in you could rent vessels, carbon vessels, to um to um uh temporarily remove the PFAS. The thing that we found with the carbon is that you have some of the smaller chain PFASes as well as the larger famous chains. So, carbon doesn't remove those as well as nanofiltration does. So, you would get you would get the the big chains out there. You might still be left with a few of the smaller chains.
So, The The skids are nano?
Uh no. Well, >> are The skids are carbon? Yeah, yeah, if you The emergency skids. You We We also tried to look at and we talked to the Veolia cuz it's their filters about loading up and and the carbon folks cuz we know them well. We have We have multiple carbon GAC plants in Central Florida that we designed in the last 10 to 15 years. So, we have multiple plants operating. And we know the carbon folks well. But, um we also tried to load it into your filters to see if we could temporarily treat it that way. And that might still be on the table, right? So, there's something that we we could do there.
But, they they didn't they didn't come up with a very good plan to do it, right? So, that And there's there's depth issues. There's hydraulic issues in your existing There's backwash issues in your existing filter. It's yellow, right? I mean, it's it's so it's you'd have to spend some money to get those filters fully functional from a you know, backwashing and and um you know, uh conversion standpoint. But, certainly you could rent vessels and get them out there and and you could provide PFAS treatment. Wouldn't do a thing for the hardness. And and you know, so there there Here go. I got to ask one because I understood that I was under the impression that the potentially the skids of the interim skids would be of the nanofiltration. Right. And and that that's what we would propose is move forward with the nano skids. Yeah, sorry sorry. What I'm saying the emergency skids, the interim skids would be nano tech potentially be nano tech the nanofiltration technology which would take care of the hardness and the other any interim. Okay, because the hardness of the water has increased substantially through the last couple three years and I've seen what comes out of the the Salisbury water. I've seen what comes out of the water water heaters that from just you know, in a 6-month period. And and here's the kicker. If you put in the nano, you need the deep well. Understood. So you [laughter] know, so so that that's we we got need to get move forward on both of those.
Okay, and and I think you may have answered one of my questions was how much sludge, how much gunk is going to be created by these and I got the I got the impression that you were we're going to lose a million a million gallons a day in sludge?
Is over Is that what we're saying?
>> It's not really sludge. It's concentrate. So >> Okay, okay. I lack a better word. Okay, so you're going to have the hard calcium, you're going to have PFAS chemicals plus there's going to have to be the water that that you're going to force it through but it's going to be a lot more than what just just just PFAS.
Um there's there would be high calcium.
It may be some high sulfate but I I don't think there's anything else in there that that would would would be I and I would have to check. I'd have to check but that that in certain cases um concentrate can be considered a hazardous waste and that's why most utilities and most nano and RO plants do deep well it. Right, but they have other things like salt. So it'd come out with very salty water. So I'm just curious, how much how much of this concentrate you're going to be creating?
Okay, so if the recovery is let's it typical is 85. We we've got projections we think we can get to 90. So if for every 100 gallons that of the well that comes in, 90 gallons will go out to the distribution system, 10 gallons will go to to waste. And there's there's technology to further concentrate that so we can get that 10 gallons down to maybe 5 gallons or 2 gallons.
>> that's where I was heading because it's an awful lot of stuff to be putting into a deep injection well that's that's going to fill that up rather quickly I would I would assume. There's there's even something called well, it's a massive boulder zone down there and you know, now the the the I'm going to say that there's things like they call them crystallizers that they put on the end of those where they can't get rid of the salt water that that turn the the water into pure salt, right? But they're very high energy and very expensive, right? So that's that's an option too, but that that would probably be right up there with the electrostatic you know, plate thing. Just a couple more questions.
The tanks that we have now they'll be they'll be the big tanks that they'll be salvaged.
Oh yes, we need them. Yes. We're not we don't have to rebuild them is what I'm saying.
>> They're adequate size to go from 5 to 6 MGD. We've already crunched the numbers.
>> And uh the last what the last question I had was on the was going to verify and see what you're saying. The difference between the 73 72 million dollars and the 125 that was mentioned in the back is the the present value more or less of the O&M that's going to be how long is that lifetime? 40 another 40 years ish?
Yeah, I I'm going to have to check but we probably used it 30 or 40 years.
>> Okay, that's fine.
Exact numbers are irrelevant at this point. It's just it's just covering the O&M in that time frame.
Okay, I think that's all I have for now.
Thank you very much. This is a good report. I appreciate it.
>> Thank you.
>> Thank you. Let's move into private.
Hi.
Have a good evening. Good evening. Um So, I take precision very seriously. So, I just wanted to ask when you described parts of White Bay plant as falling down, was that that was a I'm guessing literary license because I'm sure we would have heard from that from staff about that. But, there's a there's a couple in the staff has done a good job addressing those, but there's a couple structural issues with that lime that lime equipment that that has some rust and and is bordering on unsafe. So, I you know, I I I apologize if I used that word, but but it's it's just something that's at the end of its life, right? It's like a uh you know, an old car or something.
Not about to fall down. No, no, it's not, but Just just checking.
Thank you. I I appreciate the clarity on that. Um So, I think my first question is when we had our town hall many, many months ago um you know, GAC and IX were discussed as options. Yes.
And they were at that time uh regarded as being cheaper. Yes.
>> So, were you surprised at the outcome of your report when as described and presented in the paper and also as you've said tonight, were you surprised that the cost for all three options came out to be roughly the same?
We we were surprised and and the the value of we did a really um economical pilot study for you. We have pilot equipment ourselves. We we basically put it out on your site for free. We didn't charge you any rent. And um so, we we did an City of Tampa did a $3 million pilot study, right? So, ours was way more economical than that. And that's the the the thing that told us.
We also did um bench scale studies at the University of Florida and as well as on site also. And what it confirmed for us was that the hardness in the um in the water had some interference with the with the GAC and the ion exchange. And we even softened the water and we still had issues with with the life of those two components.
So that that was surprising to us cuz we we've seen more longevity for granular activated carbon, you know, in this situation and for this these waters, you know, in other places in Florida. So it was it was a bit surprising.
So the the main reason why GAC and IX cost more, is that because of the wear and tear that you just described? It it's it's the the um the the PFAS and we didn't have a lot of on paper competing sometimes organic carbon can compete for um uh granular activated carbon and ion exchange sites and blind the media, but we didn't have a lot of that. So we didn't expect that, but there was something in the water that that, you know, was consuming the the the carbon faster than we expected. And the the key to this was um uh and it was to credit to your staff as well. Uh they asked for a a decision tree to be performed for the for the treatment process decision and it was really a unique um request and so we took a shot at it and our first shot really didn't pass muster with the staff. So we dug a little deeper. And we happen to find it's in the appendix of the report and you should go look at it if you if you haven't, but it's by the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality and it's written by 25 PhDs and peer reviewed by another 25 PhDs, right? So it's a it's a proven study and the key point on that was if you have multi contaminants to remove, which in this case we do, hardness and PFAS, then the the decision tree steered you toward nanofiltration and away from activated carbon. Even if we would have found activated carbon to be good, it probably would have worked more as a short-term, but we still would have had to soften the water. So, we would have had to put a brand new lime plant in, and then you we the cost would have been the the same or higher. So, it just didn't make sense. And and so, from that standpoint, you 50 PhDs uh confirmed. I went to the conference water conference in Daytona a couple weeks back, and North Miami and and Miami-Dade, they spent million-dollar studies to to answer this question, right? And I was amazed at at what you know, the the the lengths they went to determine the treatment process, when in certain cases a decision tree like that would have been a uh uh uh would have given them a much quicker answer. And I I credit your staff for for suggesting that because it really turned out to be be uh helpful.
Great. Well, I'm happy it saved time. Um So, staying with the top the topic of cost.
>> Mhm.
So, the numbers that we have seen so far are as follows.
The county connection estimate was between 25 and I believe 38 million.
Right. And I think the or 35 possibly.
And the Tampa connection estimate was between 20 and 39 million.
So, um you you described those as being the highest cost, and my question is how how are those How is it possible that those are the highest cost given that 40 million is significantly smaller number than 73 million. Yeah, another great question. So, uh City of Tampa and Hillsborough County don't give their water away for free, right? What do they charge you?
A rate. And they gave it to your staff, and it's $4 plus a thousand gallon. And you just saw numbers that say we could build a nano plant for $2.25 a thousand gallon. So, you have to put the $40 on top of the $4.25 or whatever the county was going to charge you, which is really they're they're um wholesaling the Tampa Bay water wholesale, which equals a retail rate for you, right? So, you're getting you're getting you're getting a water that that hopscotched over to you and they had to mark it up from from there.
Uh I'll I'll give you another exercise.
Look at your wastewater rates, which the city does not control their wastewater rates, right? And if you look at your website, your wastewater rates are $11 per thousand gallon because somebody else does it, right? You know what your water rates are? What? 260 262?
Something like that? It's it's you know, so that you can see when you're not in control of your rates and your and your equipment, you're going to pay higher money. It's it you can look at your own webpage and and determine that. But that that's just that's just how it is, right? They have to get the water from Tampa Bay water to them, then over to you, you know, and and how and you know, as well. And they've got uh cap major cap They have to remove PFAS. They have to renew their plant. They're in the same Nobody is getting plants for free, right? So, you have to continually spend money to improve your plant. You know, the rule of thumb is 1 to 2% of a plant value a year.
I understand. So, um to develop that topic slightly, if you're saying that the $30 spread still means that it's cheaper to develop our own solution, does that mean that you've run an analysis of what it would save us?
Basically, when you buy water from another source and you pay more, economically, it's identical to taking out a loan. So, in this case, we would need 30 30 million dollars of additional debt.
If we don't do that, then we have to pay a little bit more per gallon.
Either way, right? The rate payer is going to be burdened either with a $30 million loan or with a slightly higher per gallon rate, or let's just say a higher per gallon rate.
So, does that mean if you're making this claim that you've run the economic analysis on both of those scenarios?
Well, it you know, I I'm going to say when I look at a a retail rate or a wholesale rate that I have to pay Tampa Bay Baywater or or City of Tampa a $4.20 a thousand gallon and and and we can upgrade your water system for that $2 per thousand gallon. So, you're going to be paying something like six to seven I I I haven't crunched the exact number, but it's going to be something six to seven uh dollars per thousand gallons to get it water from them to you. So, and and then you have to pay your own staff and your distribution and all that as well. On top of that, so you you know, the only thing you're going to save is you're not going to have to treat the water. You're still going to have to pump it. It's still going to have to come through Whiteway. You're still going to have to have a pump station that pumps it in your distribution. You're still going to have to upgrade Sunnydale to pump it out to the tank and etc. So, you're not you're only losing the treatment part of it. You're not losing the whole infrastructure cost that you have to take care of and operate. So, the distribution system. Right. Well, I think if I may push back slightly on that, we're not only losing out on that.
Also, the deep well, the exploratory well, those are two major items that we would not need because as you pointed out I think in your slideshow today, other cities have already begun those.
So, we wouldn't need our own. Is that correct? Right, but you you're you're going to pay for the City of Tampa's deep well, right? They're they're planning on putting one in. So, >> would be reflected in the rate we pay.
Oh, I don't know if it is or not. That's that's their current rate. So, that not what they're after they upgrade their plant to PFAS removal and put the deep well in, they've got to raise their rates, right? So, yeah, it I get your point and I'm not arguing your point.
It's it's a balance, but it's clearly clearly the numbers indicate that look you know, look at your wastewater costs.
That's all I'm going to say. That that you're you're paying five times what you pay for water for wastewater, right? And it's because it's outside. Well, with all due respect, sir, we wanted to have an accurate reflection of what these different options would cost us and what they would mean for our city. So, to be referred to my utilities bill to see what I pay for wastewater isn't giving me any information that I already don't have access to.
>> certainly. All I'm saying is and it's perfectly fine if you need more time to go back and research this and complete the task, but the thing is we asked for a breakdown so that we could analyze the three options that we had on the table. One of them being to develop our own solution. The other one being that we could connect to Tampa and the third one being that we might connect to the county. And so, if we don't have accurate numbers and an accurate understanding of what these would mean for us, then that's a problem. Certainly, I I can get you that that calculation.
That's that's a easy calculation. I'll get get that to you. I would appreciate that. Staying with the cost topic, on page ES6 of your report, I found um two different numbers three different numbers, excuse me, relating to um concentrate management and or PFAS disposal and or well drilling. So, I just wanted to try and understand what is going on here. Um And this is in the in the capital expense chart as well. So, there's a number for uh I'm just going to ask you to explain at the end of this. So, there's a number for an exploratory well, which is 7.1 million.
There's a number for concentrate management, which is 26.8 million.
And just a minute ago, what I heard was the number for concentrate management that is the number for the deep well.
Correct. However, on that same page, there is a line item called NF and deep well, and the number assigned to that is 57.1 million. That's a a a total.
So, that's a total of those two, the NF plus the deep well.
Sorry.
I'm going to check that for a moment.
So, um This is the 5-year total? Is that what you mean?
Correct. Okay. And so, why do I see above that in the total section um 57 144 389? That number carries down over That's general WTP.
And that's 57.144 million. That then cover co- comes down to the lower end here on the project for the 5-year total. Is that the idea?
Right. Okay. And so, that's a separate Okay, good. Thank you for clarifying that.
I'm happy to hear that that is just the total sum. Yes. Me, too. Um which comes to the next topic.
Uh sorry, I actually unfortunately have a lot here to get through. Um the uh single point of failure topic came up as well in your conversation.
Um I I agree with you that having a single point of failure is is a problem.
You mentioned that it was this I believe 8-in pipe.
16-in Yes.
>> 16-in pipe.
We would also end up with a single point of failure if we consolidated Sandale and uh Whiteway, right?
Um that that is correct, but you would have two trains to uh to um minimize that that. So, a single water plant is is Yes, it's it's better to have two water plants, but a single water plant with two trains is considered class one reliability. So, that's the best reliability you can get.
Okay. Um and when it comes to the well that you mentioned, the drilling, this uh 7.5 million that the attempt might be free because we might get funding through some other source. I didn't say free, but I said pennies on the dollar. You you we we would hope to get a a big chunk of it funded. Okay.
How So, that that would be from where, this funding? Uh the the the district and the uh uh state revolving loan fund, they have a a category called AWS grants, alternative water supply grants, and we believe that going down into the uh the lower Floridan would qualify for that.
Okay, good. So, I'm going to bring that up coming up shortly in the financing issue. So, the another to point that I'd like to raise is this one. So, the the recent extension that was announced on this My understanding is that it does require an application.
You do not [snorts] automatically get it.
>> No, you're right. Correct. Okay. So, your assumption is that we are applying for it?
That would be the recommended approach, yes. Right.
Because this this announcement came yesterday.
This is the day before our meeting today is when this new rule with the application possibility and possibly two-year extension for people who might get it was announced. But but in your slideshow and in your report, I saw which surprised me greatly that your entire timeline is based on 2031. So, did I mean, I can't imagine that you you didn't go in yesterday and update everything to go up to 2031 timeline, did No, we we had some information that that was going to change, so that we adjusted the report in in advance of that, so we didn't have go change it. So, yeah, we had some uh information that that was going to change. Is it your opinion then that we would not be able to complete this by 2029, by the original deadline? Uh we would have to get really moving fast. And I and I I there is a way to get it done by then, and and it would take moving now.
So.
Okay. Uh okay. So so we've been given a plan that will require us to apply for an extension.
Because that is not anything that I think I would support at this time. So I'm my initial my initial reaction to the idea of going and asking for an extension on this is very negative. So I'm just going to be up front about that. Well, and so I'm I'm I'm surprised that a report that was commissioned half a year ago or longer, a couple years ago, um well, the P fast component was I think 6 years old, but the other the the the water maintenance component is older.
That that somehow presupposes that there are 2 more years than we originally bargained for. I I'm I'm with you on this, and I feel that the the the bigger uh urgency is to to get the plant upgraded. And so that that's what I feel the bigger industry. And I don't I don't propose, and the report doesn't propose, to sit back and wait. We You can see the capital dollars that we have in there.
You just uh you you can only do so much so fast, and um you know, that's that's what we thought was was realistic. You'll You'll likely hear from your rate consultant that we may have to adjust that, but that's that's the first guess. And I'm I'm with you 100%. I Nothing in the report slowed down from the previous 2029 deadline. Okay. Um another thing that you mentioned in your presentation gave me pause, which was that concentrate can be hazardous waste.
Um we don't have any guarantee that disposing of this waste in a deep well will remain legal forever, do we? Right. That's That's the issue and that's why it's it's a placeholder for now. Okay, so you know, coming back to it again, there are uncertainties here and there are many regulatory issues that might come into play that make it much smarter to assign all of these risks to a entity like Hillsborough County or Tampa where if they suddenly have an issue with disposal in a deep well, it doesn't suddenly become something that we've spent $25 million on that we can no longer actually operate as infrastructure. Right. And And that's certainly your choice. That >> And if we were to run into a scenario like that sometime in the future, it would certainly be very smart to have paid more dollars per gallon over that period of time, I would presume, economically. That's I think that's your job. I think so right?
That's That is your job. Uh we've laid out the numbers and what the what our recommended plan is and and I I I agree that those things have to be thought through and and that that's something the city it's it's it's citizens and you will have to decide. We're getting We're getting to the end. I only have a little bit more.
Um you mentioned that these nano filters are better able to handle the water that we're giving to them than are the other filter options.
However, I'm guessing not they still break. So, what is the is the expected maintenance for these filters, the cost of replacement, the cost of repair, whatever it may be? Is that already accounted for in the economic plan that you've presented? In the In the operating costs, it is. Okay.
Correct. And And membranes may last from 5 to 10 years, sometimes more. Um the Um we we presented to your staff. Your staff went and met with some local utilities that do the exact same process and their their plants uh require less operation. They They um they are easy to operate and they're they're a you know, let's say a more robust technology, but certainly they they had they do have higher operating costs and you saw that in our in our numbers. Okay, and if if one of these filters were to break, what would that cost?
Oh, well, you just open the tube and you pull them out and replace them with new ones, right? So that's that's how that's how easy it is. So they they sit inside pressure vessels and each pressure vessel has maybe eight or so membranes inside it and there's certain things you can do to detect if a if a vessel has has malfunctioned or failed like you know, something breaking through and you you just pull those off. It's relatively rare and but it happens. There's no doubt about it. How much does it cost?
Was the question, sorry. Oh, to replace the membranes?
>> Yes, sir.
You know, I I'd have to get you that number. I don't have it on the top of my head. I membranes probably cost 4 to 500 bucks for a single 8-in element maybe a little more maybe maybe 6 to 800 right now, but um so yeah, to replace one element would be in that range. Okay, so it's fair to say that it's a trivial cost relative to the overall system. Right and and the plan is to bake that cost in as good as we know it today.
That's really reassuring. I'm glad to hear that.
The last one is service disruptions during construction. So if we're I'm presuming we're taking some of these components offline in order to work on them, right? Well, good thing they're already offline, but the plan is to put I know you the plan is to put that second 16-in main through and so that we can keep the existing plant in operation while we're constructing the new the new component. So the plan is to 100% keep the existing plant online while we're constructing the new plant.
Okay. New components.
Right now, I'm just going to briefly go through questions. I got about 25 30 questions from constituents. I'm just going to go through these and make sure that I've covered all of their concerns and then before I yield the floor here.
So, um You mentioned what You mentioned drilling into deeper areas to find less contaminated water. I saw that. Um I think the second one you've already answered as well. You did not conduct an independent analysis of interconnecting with Tampa and Hillsborough. We're relying solely on your estimate and that that seems to be slightly uh ambiguous right now. Is that correct?
Um well, the the numbers need a further calculation. Let's just say that. But, they're they're clearly higher than than what the costs were.
Okay. Of the other options. Um wastewater treatment with reclaimed water generation, was that considered as part of uh long-range utility planning in this Wastewater treatment? Yes. Well, you would need a wastewater treatment plant.
>> Reclaimed reclaimed water. Oh. Uh bringing reclaimed water in from a from an outside utility?
Locally. Oh oh oh yeah from a connecting utility. That you know, that is a great idea. That was outside the scope of our our study, but that that certainly the city should look at that. Okay.
Interesting. All right.
Uh do do Okay. [snorts] And um I think we're through with that. Thank you. Oh, thank you.
>> Sorry your question.
Thank you.
Mr. Talton, I've got a few questions.
Let me start [clears throat] with what I think are the easiest ones. So, I reading your report, I'm under the impression that the nanofiltration does not involve reverse osmosis. Is that correct? It No, that's not correct. Reverse osmosis and nanofiltration are very similar. So, it there's a spectrum and they overlap each other. So, the reverse osmosis membranes are tighter, so they can remove salt. That's their That's their goal. Nanofiltration membranes and you hear the term membrane softening, right?
So, you You need to remove salt if you've got fresh water with hardness.
So, you'll hear that term, that's more than nanofiltration. But, actually they overlap and the membrane manufacturers are are really scrambling to get a membrane that that removes most all of the PFAS and only half the hardness, right? We don't need to remove all the hardness to get to our goal. So, that if we find that membrane that's in the sweet spot, it it'd be great. If if we have to air to the to the um uh conservative side, we we'll be going towards the RO uh tightness, but you have fresh water, right? Your your wells are fresh water. We don't need to remove salt and we don't think uh that that.
But, the the line gets blurred in the middle and and you'll see the terms used interchangeably, actually. So.
Okay.
Um the deep injection well, I I understand I don't want you to repeat everything you did cuz I I had questions, but you explained it very well that this is kind of where the technology exists today is the deep injection wells for the concentrate effluent that is a byproduct of this.
Um and that hopefully in the future it's something practical and will come along that we don't have to do that because I'm I'm really not crazy about the idea of injecting this.
We're trying to get this out of the environment, not move it.
>> And me, too. I I said that at the August 2025 meeting. I'm I'm in the same boat as you.
>> just moving it to a place where it's not inconvenient to us right now, but I would really rather figure out a way to get rid of it, but that's beyond what you're, you know, I I know, I get it.
So, my questions concerning the deep injection well are where would that well be located and how deep is it? Okay. So, we've engaged a a really top-of-the-line um hydrogeologist, but they're not under contract with the city yet. So, they've provided some uh just preliminary opinions and the good thing about uh the geology underneath you is the deep well would not have to be as deep as some of the East Coast deep wells. So, and because our flow is not great, we don't need a a giant deep well. So, but that is that is the recommendation to pull that thread, right? I can only give you uh abstracts right now. We need to get a a hydrogeologist on board, discuss with the Department of Health, the Department of Environmental Protection, the Water Management District, and and come to a uh they have um you know, sophisticated uh water hydrology models, uh hydrologic models that that model groundwater flow movements. Those are the things that need to be done to answer those questions, right? So, So, we don't know how deep it would need to be.
>> Um you know, I'm going to uh our hydrogeologist told me, but uh I'm not going to shoot from the hip on this one. I I can forward you uh her opinion, and and you know, you know, that pretty much answers the question. Okay. And I guess we don't know how deep it would be would also can kind of determine where it would be.
Well, well, right. And that's that's question one, too. Exactly. We We're pretty sure we know how deep, but where is going to be the question we can locate it. And so, we're going to look at the the geology of what's underneath you, what's underneath Whiteway, where the best place is to to locate it.
So, if it's not co-located at the same water treatment plant, then we would have be talking about another pipe to get it to wherever the well is.
>> Right.
And it it could be, you know, offsite at a a a you know, another city parcel or something like that, but we would obviously try to locate it as close to the plant as we could.
So, how big in diameter would that well be? Um I'm I'm I'm going to say 6 in, and and um so that that's what I remember approximately that that well would be.
>> Well, I when Council member Shisler asked the question about how much affluent would be generated, I did some quick numbers on my phone here and it if we were to be pumping 6 million gallons a day and you had an 85% throughput, we would get about a million gallons a day of affluent. Well, close to it. Yes, sir. So, that would be a lot going down that well. Is that I mean I I assume you've done this before, so that well could take that.
>> Yeah, that's that's about yeah, 700 gallons per minute. So, so yeah, that's that's something in the 6 to 8 8-in range. Okay.
Um So, let me this part I actually thought I was pretty clear on this until tonight and then I got fuzzier and the more this went on, the fuzzier I got. So, when you talked about the exploratory well and that's that 7.1 million dollars, which I got a couple questions about that cuz it's it's not all in one year. The exploratory well is $850,000 in year two, $800,000 in year three and 5.5 million dollars in year How do you drill a well over a three-year period? Well, the first part is is permitting it, locating it, coordinating with the district on the modeling and getting their approval, right? So, that's we're not drilling a well unless they say we can, right? So, that's that's the first step of the process and and some of it could be spread out a little differently. We We did the best we could do estimate it, but uh It seems to me like when you I mean, I get the permitting and the stuff like that. You got to go through that. That's an expense to that.
But once you start drilling a well, you drill a well. Right. And and we just think it'll take a a little bit of time to answer the question as to where it goes and and get it permitted and things like that. So.
>> Okay. So, here's the part where I got fuzzy.
What's the benefit in us doing this exploratory well at all for $7 million if we're going to have to do the nano filtration system most likely Right. on the deep water aquifer as opposed I mean we're doing it our wells are working fine. They just have contaminants in them. We got calcium to get out and P-fast. Right.
But other than that, we have good water. It's just got to be processed better. Right. That that's >> the advantage of going to this deeper well where we're probably going to still have to do the filtration? Why don't we just leave the well out of it? I don't see what the advantage is.
>> That that's that's a valid question and that is something that could be easily done should you choose so. So, that that's the that path we chose was we we we believe that we need an additional well at Whiteway when we go to 6 MGD. We know that. And so, that's the that's the kicker. So, we either need that or a pipe from Sunningdale.
And we we just discussed that. But those those are both valid options. There's no doubt. You could just say, "Hey, jeez you know, I used to we used to drill wells for a million bucks, right? Now they're $7 million, right? You know, that's And so, that that's totally valid and something that could change down the road. That that's So, from a layman's perspective, I'm going to expose my ignorance here, I know.
But after listening to this and reading this report, um listening [clears throat] to some of the public comment, I first of all, I don't understand the need and maybe this will come out later as we review this, but I really don't understand any advantage to drilling the exploratory well. Why don't we just go with the wells we have and treat it?
So, number two is that that frees up seven Well, not frees up. It's the $72 million. There's nothing free about it, but that reduces the potential cost by $7 million. Right.
So, this is a looking at a 2031 um sunset I mean, this is when this thing's likely to be operational. Hopefully before, but it's still a number of years off.
Having been in government for a long time, I know this stuff takes a long time. I mean, if we started today, I don't know if we'd make 2029, but um so I I this isn't work direction. I can't do that. The council's got to discuss this, but it's just me thinking out loud.
Is it feasible?
I mean, everything's possible, but is it feasible to do some short-term mitigation while we undertake this?
In other words, I I read this thoroughly about what's going on at the Whiteway Treatment Plant. I I've been out there.
I don't understand the intricacies of the process, but I have seen every square inch of that property, so I know the condition of the equipment, what it looks like.
Is it feasible to put some temporary PFAS mitigation? We already have a lime removing system in the pipe that doesn't do anything. It's on bypass. It hasn't worked. It's not working. We're not going to fix it.
So, is it possible to route the pipe that goes into that and the pipe that comes out of it and just go around it and put a temporary PFAS mitigation system in the process at Whiteway now?
Now, I understand from what you said that it may not get us to our objective to get down to the levels that we're trying to get down to. Right.
But, it may remove a good percentage of what we have and take us down to a much lower level until we get the final solution online in 2030 or 2031.
We could remove a portion of that, even if we had to go buy one of these trailers as opposed to renting for 3 years.
How I mean, we got if we didn't do the exploratory well, we'd have $7 million savings.
We could go buy a trailer or two. Right.
Now, in order for that to work, if these are NF trailers, we would have to drill the deep well first.
Which would change the scope of work because you got to have somewhere to put the effluent. Right.
But, couldn't we change I mean, is it feasible to do the deep well first while we're engineering all the electrical and all the You got a lot of work to do out there. There's a lot of stuff to take time.
Drill the well, put these temporary mitigation strategies in place, hopefully, you know, even around the the old water softening system that doesn't work, and then pipe that effluent into the well for the next 3 years.
The only part of that that I see we would be spending extra money is the trailers, the temporary fix that we would have to buy. Right. The well, we would have to drill anyway. Right. So, is that feasible? And I'm going to answer that question. In master planning, we start here at the 30,000-ft level. And as we go to preliminary design, we zero in and get more detailed, right? And that The answer to that is yes, but I would talk to the district and the DOP the DEP the DOH first, right? And And that's that's what you've got to involve the whole picture, and you got to show them the plan and the options, and then you're you're going to determine they're going to determine also what might be feasible. They have groundwater models, and and you need to run those to see, "Okay, we want to take the water from here and and not here."
And things like that. So, the answer is yes, it's feasible. And as we go from master plan to preliminary design into design, you get more granular, you zero in on things like that. That's a 100% feasible, valid question. And and that that will be flushed out when we when we move on to the next step.
Okay. And let me just follow up with something that Council Member Kravitz brought up to you. I just want to make sure that everybody understands where we are and what's coming next with this.
There was discussion about a cost benefit cost-benefit analysis of hooking up to Hillsborough or Tampa in terms of water, right? And I get what you're saying. I understand. And first of all, this presupposes that Tampa's willing to let us hook on, which I'm not sure that's a good assumption, cuz they've got capacity issues. But anyway, you said that you were would be able to run some numbers and provide some Now, I I The reason I want to go back to that is >> [snorts] >> I don't want to exceed the scope of work here that you're under with the city.
Can you do that and provide it to us?
And if so, I mean, could we have it by the town hall? Cuz I will tell you there's a lot of people in the city that are saying, "Why don't we just do this?"
>> Sure. And and and yes, that that can be done. The the conversation and the information came at a really late date, but it's valuable information, and it's enough for us to estimate what it cost.
The point is, Tampa is going to be uh implementing PFAS, too. Treatment, too.
And deep well. So, you know, their their rates are not going to be static, right?
So, that's But we can certainly run the numbers at their current rates. That's not an issue.
>> talked to Mayor Castor, and again, this conversation presupposes that they would be agreeable to letting us do that, and I don't think that's the case.
Um Hillsborough County may be, but I don't think Tampa's got the They're already in the design phases of their I would trust I would trust what your what your public works staff met with them and [snorts] and said, and that's something you guys can ask them directly. So, I was not there.
>> having those numbers is what I think would be beneficial for both us and the public to know.
Not a problem. It's a lot of money. So, we're trying to make sure we have all the Understand.
Yes, that's an easy calculation.
Mr. Warrenfield, anything to Okay. Mr. Talton, any final words? I just want to thank you all. I The The level of depth of questions I I applaud you because those are things that we struggled with, too, to to develop this plan, and and at some point we had to pick a plan to move forward. So, we we picked the best best plan we could, but it is certainly in your court and your staff's court to adjust this plan going forward. A master plan, again, flies at 30,000 ft, then you come down to the level once you had discussions with the regulators, etc. So, it is now is the time to shake the bushes and answer these questions on that level, on a on a more granular level. So, thank you again.
>> Thank you, Mr. Talton. So, council members, I'm going to defer to your wishes on this. I don't think there's any action expected. Do you You We're good? I think so. Um but, if you choose then you want to have some discussion on it, we can certainly do that. I I mean, we're here. It's an important topic. It's expensive. We can have some discussion if you'd like. I I have one item.
>> Okay. It I just wanted as for the exploratory well and the possibility of not having to do that. I based on the information that's presented, that would make sense to me.
However, they have indicated that it's possible we might it might be more cost-effective to add a well for capacity at Whiteway versus trying to lay pipe to get the water from Sunnydale to Whiteway as because it's already got to go piping already has to exist to go from Whiteway to Sunnydale. So, that might not eliminate the cost of a well, but it might not require it to be a deep well, which would reduce the cost. Anyway, that is the only thing I I >> I'd be interested in having a little more on that as well because if we're going to put a pipe from Whiteway to Sunnydale because you got to have supply. You got to treated water going to Sunnydale.
>> Yes.
Seems like if you're going to dig a trench, you're going to put a pipe, you could dig the same trench, put two pipes, but I mean, I don't know if they're trencher or they bore. I'm not sure how that works, but And we don't we none of this really had the cost associated with >> That's a good point. Yeah, you're right.
Yeah. The other comment I have is uh for the last 6 years, Tampa Tampa has increased rates to us for their treatment plants and and so forth. So, whatever calculations you do, um that that that has to be factored in as to what's it going to be, what's the potential. And I know I know just of our sewer rates, they went up 5, 10, 15% every year uh for for handling it cuz they were they we we ended up having to pay for their improvements, and they're going to pass it on just like just like uh that. Um plus also the distance. It's what, 1 mile from here to uh the city, 3 miles from here to the county, and all that we can encounter in that type of a of of a hookup connection.
Um God knows what's out there in in in between. So, that'd be my my word of caution with that.
Yeah, I would agree with you, but I think with a project this big >> Oh, we got to look at it. We got to look at it. Absolutely got to look at it.
It's just something that we we we we keep as much of it in the calculations we can.
>> We would be doing a disservice to the people if we didn't look at Agreed.
Agreed.
Councilman Miranda I have a question for uh city manager.
Um when we got numbers from Hillsborough County and Tampa Bay uh and Tampa Water, uh my assumption there was that if they were giving us estimates that they were in principle willing to connect. Was that Was that a bad assumption on my part?
So, to clarify, we approached them a year ago um about this issue because we were trying to just look at all the alternatives as was evidenced by discussion tonight.
Um I don't think this is a priority for the for the for the Hillsborough County nor the city of Tampa.
My understanding at at the staff level, I've not talked to the folks with the city of Tampa. Uh I talked to them initially. I was on a call with our staff.
The rest of the conversations since have been at the water level staff. Um water staff level, I should say.
Our understanding is that the city of Tampa may have some capacity issues where this they might not be inclined to do this. I think they explored it as a courtesy to us because that was our request.
But, they have some capacity issues they're trying to work through because uh again, they they pull from the river primarily and they have to to meet a certain amount I think also from Tampa Bay Water and if there's a drought or or more demand, then they're pulling more from Tampa Bay Water which costs them more. So, I think they're trying to figure out their own internal capacity and then also deal with their own PFAS issues cuz they have PFAS as well. And so, they Council recall when we did meet with meet with them a year ago, their costs were, you know, well in excess of a hundred million dollars that they were looking at for just to address the the PFAS issue including the the deep well.
So, I I I don't I don't know if the Tampa will be a a viable uh possibility.
Uh the county we would have to look at the county again.
Excuse me.
>> [clears throat] >> Uh the concern that I have with with the county uh alternative is that it's a three plus mile connection uh to get to their to the closest connection point to to get it to the water way plant.
Uh our experience for example in Fowler Avenue dealing with underground infrastructure, you think something's going to cost a certain amount and then it you end you realize because there could be anything underground that's not accounted for coming from the county to the city that those costs could exponentially grow very quickly. So, if I recall, I think the number might have been an estimate of forty million dollars let's say for the county connection.
That number could be much much larger.
Again, because we don't know what's underground to make that connection. So, I think there's a lot of variables there. It's not to It's not to mean that we shouldn't continue to look at it. I just think that it it the costs will probably end up being more significant than we are contemplating at this moment. Again, if the county would be willing to even consider that at this point. Okay. I mean, I think going forward, I personally would really like to know whether just yes or no from both of these utilities whether they're willing to connect.
Um I'd also be curious if the connection point that's three miles away is toward the east because we are always talking about annexing areas in the east. So, if that is the case there might be some arbitrage there.
Um and uh the last point that comes to mind Yes, everyone is raising their utility rates.
Tampa will, the county will, we will.
Um However, this estimate that we have in front of us about the 72 million is already 6% higher because we had 6% inflation this year.
So, I would assume that that is reflected in a higher ongoing cost and as we move forward over the next few years, these costs will also not age well. The uh the ones that we have in front of us for the do-it-yourself solution.
And there's also always a risk in doing construction that you will experience delays and cost overruns. And so, when I consider which of these options, if we have three, and we may not, I would think which one has the greatest risk of uh a significant overrun. So, the the numbers from Tampa and the county, the provisional ones, were in a very wide range. So, I I don't If I got an estimate from like 20 to 35 million or 20 to 40 million, I probably wouldn't take it too seriously. So, I'm not assuming that these numbers are going to survive contact with the enemy.
But, uh we do need to get the numbers and we also do need to get a yes or no, in my mind, from all of the people that we're talking to.
Even if we have to force the question, right? Sometimes it's a little bit unpleasant, but you have to say you have to ask for the order, right? Are you willing to connect? Yes or no? And if they say no, then we file that away and we know that we can't have that option.
So, we pursue other options with more energy.
But, it's important to know. And I think that everyone I everyone I speak to wants to know, even if they want to keep it in-house, they want to know what these other options might cost.
Nobody wants to do whatever we're going to do and have any regrets that we didn't look at everything and make the best choice. So, I think that that is something that everyone has in common.
Everyone wants to know that whatever we do was the right thing, right? And the only way we can do that is if we have as complete a picture as we get.
>> [clears throat] >> And again, I'm very concerned about the cost of this project if we do it in-house escalating over time, because inflation is real, material crunches are real, the demand for these parts is going to be intense and real as we go forward.
I would not assume that the number that we have is the number that we're going to end up with.
Even when I'm doing really basic construction like like rehabbing a house, always I plan for a 15 to 20% overage, and I've never been disappointed, ever.
So, that just goes right into my budget from the start.
So, if we extrapolate something like that for here, right? And already we've had very significant inflation this year. I was reading in the paper a few days ago.
Um we're talking 5, 6% in almost every category.
Um and energy is a big part of construction. Energy is way up.
So, so we are looking at higher numbers than what we have here today.
I will I will guarantee it. So, those are my thoughts right now.
Any discussion? Yes. Um my thoughts.
I certainly can't make a decision tonight. We have a very good report.
We've had some great questions, a lot of great discussions.
Um I look forward to the town hall on Tuesday.
We'll We'll hear more from the public, but I I really appreciate everything the consultants have done, our staff done.
You worked really hard on it. Just my uh thoughts on the latest issue, and again, uh we don't have the numbers, and we have to explore everything.
But I personally, I would love to keep control of our water plant with us in the water plant, not rely on another entity, which our staff and our uh citizens that are sitting out in the audience now would have to go down to City of Tampa or Hillsborough County to the uh talk about their water to their houses, so we can control that.
But that's just my thought right today.
So, that's it, Mayor.
Okay. So, I just uh just want briefly I agree with much of what you said, council member, particularly with the cost overruns. These are already given to us in 2025 [clears throat] numbers.
So, um I agree that the real number, I'm sure, will be significantly higher than 72 million.
In terms of getting a firm yes or no though from Hillsborough County or Tampa, that's that sounds easy and it's not because both [snorts] of those entities that that would take us months to probably, if you're looking for a firm answer, because both of those entities would would have to take it to their governing board.
It would it would almost I'm sure have to go to the county commission and to Tampa City Council to get final approval.
But in addition to that, both of those entities would also have to go to Tampa Bay Water because they're a they're a customer and a partner to Tampa Bay Water and we're not.
So, that would be a third board that that would have to go to to see if they could re-wholesale as a Tampa Bay Water customer.
I'm pretty sure under their um I don't know what their charter or their user agreement as a charter member, I don't think they're allowed to do that. It would would cause some that that doesn't mean that it couldn't eventually be done.
>> [clears throat] >> But as terms of like picking up the phone and calling Bonnie Wise or Jane Castor, you're not going to be able to get that. I mean, you could probably get a no, but it would take you a long time to get a yes because it would have to go through and and if um you have any experience with either of those entities, um you know, think it takes us a long time to get something done, try dealing with them. And and uh for them to get something worked up to the point of going to their city council or their BOCC would set us back a long time. So, um we can certainly renew the contract or contacts and try, but it's not like you're going to call Bonnie and get Yeah, we can do that. I mean, it's going to be more than that. So, Okay?
Very good. Well, that was good discussion.
Um next we have funding options for proposed water plant improvements.
And Peter Napoli from Stantec senior, he's a senior manager for Stantec, is here to present.
>> Mr. Mayor >> Yes. Mr. [clears throat] Before Mr. Napoli comes up, I just want to preface his presentation.
>> Okay.
So, Mr. Napoli with Stantec was commissioned to look at a bond feasibility study, revenue feasibility for a potential bond.
So, what he did, and you're going to see, is basically he looked as if we you know, we were bonding the full 72.
4 72.2 million dollars that's presented in the in the master plan report.
>> [snorts] >> I want to make clear that there are there are alternatives of which Mr. Talton talked about through like the state drinking water revolving loan fund. There may be appropriations. In fact, um I have a meeting set up with officials from DEP Tallahassee DEP and our our government affairs consultant he'll set this up. We're going to have these conversations about that process cuz that only really starts up in July, for example, the application cycle and it would go into next year's session as well for some of that. So, that first year there could be some other things here that we could find out about apply for it. We may get by year two some dollars that offset the full amount that's listed here.
But I just wanted you to know what what he was charged with was looking at. Take the full amount and if we had to bond it, what would it look like?
Okay.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Welcome, Mr. Knaple. Thank you. Thank you, city manager, for that introduction.
>> monitor.
Go ahead. Brian, we've got a monitor that's failed.
Okay, you can continue. He'll >> Go ahead. Go ahead. We'll catch up.
>> All right. Um well, thank you for having me here today. Good evening. Peter Knaple, Santec Consulting.
Um as the city manager was explaining, we were tasked with, you know, taking all these variables and assumptions that were just discussed and inputting it into a rate plan, a 10-year sustainability outlook for the water and sewer utility.
Um so, I've got a brief presentation for you tonight. We're only covering a couple of these scenarios, but uh it was an expedited process just to get here.
We just wanted to get the discussion started, so we are definitely going to come back with more scenarios after this.
Um some of the things that the city manager was explaining that could affect the cost side in a positive manner, so funding from other sources, those weren't factored in. And then on the side that the council member Kravitz just discussed where costs could be higher than they're initially expecting, we haven't contemplated that yet. We We're just taking the 72 and a half million dollar number from the engineering consultant's report and then running with that for now, and we can kind of work with things as they become available.
So, just a little background on the rate study. Uh typical, you know, rate study revenue sufficiency analysis. The goal is just to look at the operating revenues, the water, sewer, reclaimed rate revenues that are generated.
There's some other operating revenues that your utility generates from other miscellaneous fees. Look at that on an annual basis. Look at the operating expenses as they currently stand in the budget. Look at the capital outlay and then the capital concerns in the future and basically give the city a a recommendation on whether or not your rate revenues are sufficient currently or they need to be increased uh through um um rate increase adoption.
So, the big part about this is that middle section, the borrowing is a is a is a huge uh a topic of focus in this study.
Um so, we have the the data the cost data from the water treatment renewal plan in the study and we reflect that the cost requirement side outside of that there are operating cost requirements for the water and sewer utility currently. We did our best to project those going forward for the next 10 years based on the last uh several years of historical trends. Um so, things like personnel services, so salaries and benefits, um retirement costs, health insurance, your fuel costs, chemicals, repair and maintenance, all those operating budget line items, we have those moving forward year after year, too, to give you an idea of how your operating expenses are increasing. And then lastly, I just wanted to point out the renewal and replacement projects. The other projects that are on the CIP for the water and sewer utility to keep up with all the other demands and needs, we have those in there and we have the continual funding of that R&R fund, which is it's kind of separate it uh held separately from the water and [snorts] sewer utility fund, but we have that continual funding uh contemplated as well.
So, the key drivers um for the rate increases that we're going to discuss today, obviously the capital project funding, so the water treatment renewal plan over that 5-year time frame, um the total cost being 72 and 1/2 million dollars.
The middle section there, the financial sustainability, so one of the key metrics or performance indicators when we're talking about debt like this and issuing new debt for a water and sewer utility is the coverage. Um so, these bonds, they're potential bonds, hypothetical bonds at this point that could be issued for this project.
Uh they're backed by the water and sewer rate revenues. So, the agencies and will want to ensure and the banks will want to ensure that those water and sewer rate revenues are sufficient to cover that debt service on an ongoing basis.
Uh so, there's a coverage requirement.
And so, you're essentially your net income for your water and sewer utility after you you take your operating revenues minus your operating expenses has to at least be 1.2 times. Uh if it was anywhere lower than that, they probably just wouldn't issue the the debt to the city. But, we would really like it to be more like 1.5 times. So, that's why we highlighted it there.
That's more of a target. That's going to get you better interest rates and a better uh credit um you know, credit rating from [snorts] the agencies. So, that's what we're using right now kind of as our our minimum at 1.5 times target. And then, on the other side of the equation is fund balance. It's important for the rating agencies and important for the uh bond issuance. You want to be sure that you're maintaining at least 3 months, which is 25% of your annual operating expenditures in that water and sewer sewer utility over that 10-year time frame.
And then, the key driver on the cost side, uh like I was discussing, the blended cost rate is about 4.2% average assumed annual increases uh across the board for your operating expenses. We [clears throat] have that built into the the financial forecast.
One more slide here on just reviewing the high-level assumptions. So, we worked uh quickly with your your the city budget staff and city management to get your 2025 financials in here. So, what that tells us is your current starting point from a a fund balance standpoint for your water and sewer utility. How much money do you have in the bank um, after all of your liabilities are paid for?
We have your current year 2026 budgeted revenues and expenses and it's probably an amended budget, like a more recent version of that budget. We don't have the 2027 budget in at this time. I think it's preliminary in nature and where it's a work in progress. So, as soon as that becomes available, that's going to be loaded into the analysis. Um, the operating capital cost escalation. So, we do have inflation built in for the other capital um, projects out there in the the the forecast. We have the annual renewal and replacement CIP.
And then if we go down to the bottom just at a a high level estimate. So, 30 years at 4 and 1/2% we're looking at a net uh, a new debt service of about 4 and 1/2 million dollars. Um, that assumes proceeds of 68 million because I applied I saw that there is a fund balance in your water impact fee fund and there's about we're predicting there's a going to be about 4 million dollars available out of that water impact fee fund to go towards this project. And [snorts] I think that it's an eligible project because there is a capacity expansion component of all these upgrades. I think with the additional uh, line going in for uh, the other 16-in pipe. So, whether or not, you know, the city council wants to pledge that impact fee funds towards the project, we could take that out and recalculate the numbers. It'll be more like 4.7 million for annual debt service, but I just wanted to review that so you guys don't get confused when you see that 68 million dollars of debt issuance. That's just the impact fees uh, bridging that gap.
And then I just wanted to show here.
This is the same schedule that the consulting engineer just uh, just showed the city council. I just wanted to highlight that first year because it's important for one of the scenarios that we ran. For the city, the first year of total spending is around $8 million on these projects. So, that's this next upcoming [clears throat] fiscal year.
>> [cough] >> And the total is, of course, 72 and 1/2.
Okay, so this is a screenshot from the dashboard of our financial model.
Um it can be a little intimidating at first. There's a lot going on. So, I'm going to I'm just going to walk you through from the top to the bottom.
It's a 10-year forecast. So, that first row there is the all the fiscal years that are included in the forecast. We're starting in fiscal year 2026, and it goes all the way out to 2036.
The very next line is the assumed rate increases for the water and sewer rates.
This is across the board for it would be for both both the fixed and volumetric rates for water, sewer, reclaimed um on your current rate schedule.
2026, the most recent year you adopted a 5% rate increase. So, that's that first number you see. And then going forward, that's our current scenario that we have in the financial model. So, in this scenario, we have a 15% rate increase in 2027, a 10% increase in '28, and then 3% increases thereafter.
The next row is the senior lien debt service coverage. So, this is where the model is calculating the debt service coverage um as a metric for the uh the the utilities revenues against the debt service payment.
There is a couple years that are highlighted there in yellow cuz you're getting a little close to that 1.5 where you're, you know, slightly below that 1.5. Um you know, speaking with the FA, it's not really a cause for concern.
It'd be a cause for concern if it was levels away from that 1.5, but that's kind of within a margin of error.
Um the next row is the total residential bill. So, this is where we do an average residential bill water just water and sewer only at 4,000 gallons of usage.
So, the average customer at 4,000 gallons of usage currently pays about $75 a month. But, you'll see that $74.63 in the first year.
With a 15% increase, that would be an $11 increase monthly to $85 a month. And then, the 10% increase would be about $8.50 to about $95 a month. And then, those 3% increases are about $3 a month.
Wow.
So, the three charts at the bottom the chart off to the left-hand side is the operating fund balance. This is where we're tracking the savings account for the water and sewer utility over that 10-year time frame. And we don't want to show forecast where those blue bars are falling below that black line. That black line is the the 25% target uh or minimum policy for the reserve balance.
Uh the middle line there shows just it's just purely informational. It shows the revenues in the black tracking with the expenses in the orange. And then, your operating expenses at the bottom there in the in the dashed blue line. So, the difference between that dashed blue line and the orange is the debt service and then the cash-funded capital that's coming out of the utility fund.
And then, off to the right, you can see the funding for this water treatment renewal plan. You're basically issuing all the money up front next year in 2027. So, you'd get the 70 or $68 million in proceeds and start paying that debt service. We did uh working with the FA, we did um contemplate or assume uh 2 years of interest only to try to take a little pressure off of the rates in the beginning uh under this conventional uh debt issuance scenario.
So, there is 2 years of interest only.
Interest only is around $3.3 million in those 2 years. So, it's still a lot of pressure up front.
But, once the after those 2 years of interest only and those rate increases catch up, you get your revenue to a level where you can adequately cover that debt service on an ongoing basis for the 30 years and then maintain the fund balance.
So, this next scenario is where you don't issue the bonds next year.
Instead, you you kind of you kind of punt on it for 1 year and take out a line of credit, which the FA said is an option to the city to consider with basically a revolving fund. You get approved for max limit. Um say that max limit is $8 million, the amount needed to start the projects as part of that timing schedule.
So, the city just pays interest on that.
In that first year, the interest is slightly higher. We're estimating around 5 and 1/2%.
Um so, you take out 8 million or you pay for the the beginning the initial stages of the project with the $8 million line of credit in fiscal year 2027. You make about a $450,000 interest payment in that year. And then in 2028, you wrap that line of credit off or you pay it off with the issuance of a bond for the same amount as what was being issued before in the first year. So, I hope that's not too confusing, but essentially it's buying you another year where you pay interest only, relieving pressure on rates.
Um so, under this scenario at the top part of the page here, we have 3 years of 10% rate increases rather than that 15% and then a 10%. So, in total it it adds up to more, right? It's 30% versus the other scenario is um is over the 3-year period 28%, so slightly more.
Just because you're not getting that revenue sooner, you know, the 15% generates more sooner and there's a um cumulative effect of generating more money sooner than than kind of delaying it and put pushing it out, but it does um all the coverage looks really great under this scenario. You have more level increases, 10% a year for 3 years rather than that 15% spike and then a 10%. Um the average impact to the monthly bill is around $7 a month, $7.50 a month in that um first year and then 820 in the second year.
And then there is uh if you look at the fund balance chart, there looks to be a little bit of of a building of fund balance in the latter 5 years of the projection period.
I think that's important important to point out because there's a a definite lack of major CIP projects currently. We we don't have a 10-year plan, we just got that 5-year plan, so if there's anything that could occur in that latter 5 years of the 10-year projection, major capital projects that the city will need cash to dedicate to, it's pretty important to have some fund balance built up for that purpose. Um so that's This is the only other scenario we generated for the city at this time.
I know there's a lot of variables flying around right now of, you know, the different funding sources. It's another thing to point out. If you just take out this line of credit next year, gives you time to figure out are there other funding sources available?
Um are there grants? Are there lower cost debt options like you know SRF etc. So it kind of buys the city a little bit more time to to go that route, but it's definitely it's a policy decision it's up to the city council where to take this. At this point it's just you know we're we're shopping it. There's no decisions that are made on the rates at this point and that happens later on in the year, but um, there will have to be a decision made in terms of the rate increase for next year.
Especially if the city is planning on issuing the debt conventionally next year the rating agencies and the financial advisor and the banks are going to want to see that the city has a commitment to raising the revenue to an adequate level to meet those debt service coverage targets.
So the next chart here just summarizes the um, the the scenarios of those three scenarios and really just that next year of a rating impact. So >> [clears throat] >> off to the left here we have Temple Terrace's current water and sewer water and waste water um, bill in total for that average four 4,000 gallon usage.
Then in the middle there you can see Temple Terrace with a 10% rate increase.
So that black line is the average across all of these uh, utilities that we surveyed. So under the 10% scenario 10% rate increase scenario you're still falling below the average and then even under the 15% rate increase scenario you're about right at the average when compared to these entities.
And they're mostly regional. We tried to uh, get you a good you know survey base here of other uh, um, local water and sewer utility providers.
And then just one last slide and I I think the engineering consultant also mentioned this. No one's rates in the area are static right now, so it's when you look at these surveys and look at the different scenarios of rate increases for Temple Terrace, these other entities on this chart are most likely also contemplating rate increases for next year. We just don't know them yet and it's not public record yet.
As that becomes available, we'll incorporate it, but there's rate increases all across the state, especially when dealing with the upgrades necessary to address the PFAS issue, so I've just grabbed a couple headlines. There's St. Pete is raising about 9% a year. Apopka is increasing about 16% in the first year and then 9% after.
Hernando County just voted to adopt a 5-year rate plan and then Pasco's also increasing their rates, but that's it's just a few. There's many other rate increases that are being adopted around the state.
So to summarize and conclude the scenarios that I brought before you today, scenario one is just conventional debt issuance next year in fiscal year 2027 in order to meet the coverage targets and the fund balance targets under that scenario, we're recommending 15% rate increase in 2027 followed by a 10% rate increase in 2028 and [clears throat] then more nominal increases thereafter.
In scenario two, the city would utilize a line of credit to fund the beginning stages of the project next year and then in 2028 look at issuing conventional debt, conventional borrowing.
Under that scenario, we'd recommend a rate increase of 10% for the next 3 years.
Residential bills even under those two scenarios remain favorable when compared to local utilities.
And of course as things change and you know inflation numbers come out and maybe the construction costs get revised, we recommend that the city continue to evaluate this on an annual basis.
If there's any other funding sources, maybe these rate increases can come down and it can offset the impact on ratepayers. But at this time, this is the the best information we can give you.
So, thank you. Thanks for your time and I'll be happy to answer any questions.
>> Thank you, Mr. Napoli. Are there members of the public who wish to comment?
I think everybody's run out of gas.
Council members question. I started this in last time. I'll start it this in this time. Council member Crooks.
A great presentation. Thank you very much. This is really, really good, really thorough. I really appreciate it and thank you for the care you put into it and all of the detail.
I There were one or two things I didn't understand.
One was the operating fund >> [snorts] >> numbers that that I saw in the two respective slides and I was just wondering it looked like the operating fund was really significantly higher, like crossing over the $15 million mark at one point. I think it was 20 35.
Why why would it go that high? And also, why is there such a stark difference between the LOC model and the bond only model?
Yeah, maybe we could maybe we could calibrate that in a little bit more, but just for example, I I have a model that I I looked at 9% over the 3 years and as soon as you go down to 9%, you see the yellow flash across the board for that debt service coverage. So, the the way the model works, what's really driving these rate increases more so than having a certain amount of money in the bank is having a certain amount of revenue to cover the debt service coverage. So, it's a debt service coverage uh trigger more than a fund balance trigger. And that's why you're seeing the fund balance kind of raise a little bit. It's it we're not raising the rates because we need more fund balance. It's because you need more revenue to cover that annual debt service amount under both scenarios. So, that's I think the best explanation there, but there is there is excess fund balance out there. And then if you look at the coverage, there's a little excess coverage, too. You're getting above that 1.5.
Under that situation, you know, this is just a projection. We're not saying that you adopt this 10-year rate plan and and stick with it. You wouldn't continue to just add money to the bank account.
You'd probably reevaluate and lower those rate increases out in the future.
I'd say the most important rate increases to focus on for now are the first three to four years time frame to just get the revenue up.
It's kind of a shot in the arm to get the revenue up to a level where you can now bring on 4 and 1/2 million dollars of debt that the city didn't have previously.
Got it. So, am I understanding it correctly?
We have to bring in a certain amount of minimum revenue.
That's part of the bond term. Exactly.
>> So, as a result of that, we're accumulating a fund balance.
Is there a way that we could maybe negotiate prepayment options into the loan so that as the fund balance builds, it triggers and then a repayment gets made and then over time that'll lower the rate increases? Yeah, if you had excess fund balance, then you could then reallocate to pay off principal. I'm sure that that's something that you could that's getting out of my area of expertise. That's I would definitely advise the city consult the FA on the financial advisor on that.
Um but that's certainly a a use of fund balance of a good use of fund balance.
Okay.
Interesting. Okay.
Uh that's all I got. Thank you.
Councilmember? Yes, thank you, Mayor.
Um [clears throat] how would the commitment These are This is a funky question. So, bear with me for a second.
And I just Now I just compounded the complexity with the with the increasing fund balances.
Would the change of the um with changes in our fund outside funding sources, we come across a grant, we come across something else, we would come in and 2 3 years from now reduce it. Would that change the type of commitment we would have to make with the lenders in order to so that we could reduce this the the the the the month the annual increase cuz you figure for scenario two, you have 30% increase, basically 30% cumulatively over the first two three years. And 3% was the other was 25% essentially over the first two years and then 3% thereafter. That's why the That's why your fund balance is growing so so dramatically towards the end.
Is there anything that we're going to have to give to a lender or the or the underwriters of of the the bonds to allow them to do this or to allow them to reduce the overall rates?
Other cuz we're going to have to We're going to have to make a commitment here that we're going to do XYZ. And then all of a sudden we get a $5 million so we can throw at this thing.
Okay?
Are we going to have to come back and continually change the commitments that we're making or is that something that you don't know at this point?
I I think the way it works is that when the council finally decides on the approach you want to take and it you know, and you give direction to city management move forward we want to issue that next year in the amount of $16 million.
We start working on what's called the bond feasibility report which goes in with this issuance that basically says this is the city's plan for revenues over the next you know, 3 years. This This is the plan This is what it looks like over a 10-year period with their debt service coverage. They are stable you know, utility. They're basically uh worth investing money in.
If anything changes after that, I'm not sure how it works after that bond report is issued and I believe that there's probably stipulations with the bank on how soon you can pay off principal like you probably can't pay it off you know, next year if oh, you know, we just got $10 million in a grant. So, um I I really it's timing is an important thing. And that's why that the I like the line of credit option because it kind of buys the city an additional year to do more fact-finding with these funding sources and um you know, maybe there is other you know, ways to reduce that principal that you have to issue and to any amount that you can reduce that annual debt service payment you reduce the pressure on rate payers and the rate increases that are necessary. I would agree with that.
>> [clears throat] >> The first year is the line of credit um and then do the do the rep and to to to to to to to to to to absorb that. Um I know I've done industrial revenue bonds and it's oh my god, it's a nightmare. We only and I only did $6 million not not you know, 72 73 million.
Um I think that's all I have right now, but if there's good information. Thank you. Appreciate it. Absolutely.
Yeah, man.
Yes, Mr. B. So, I I appreciate Mr. Napoli taking a stab at Anthony's questions, but they're outside of like he's he admitted it's a little bit outside his wheelhouse. He's the rate expert. Uh we do have a financial advisor. We also have a bond counsel that you've all met before. So, uh what I will do with Mr. Ingram is we're making notes of all the questions that are coming up and we will be consulting with a financial advisor and bond counsel trying to get some of these answers. I know with the general obligation bond, the prepayment within the first 10 years was not really a feasible item from what Mr. uh um Roe explained to us and Mr. Draper as well.
Uh but we'll ask the same question in terms of a revenue bond if the same stipulations apply and we'll get all that information back to you.
Thank you.
Vice Mayor? No questions. Council Member Fernandez?
I have a couple of things. Um one, I I just want to start off for anybody watching or who will watch, um this is different from a general obligation bond because we are discussing funding in an enterprise fund and an enterprise fund in a governmental entity means that all operating expenses, capital renewal, replacement projects, etc. all have to be paid by the specific fees established and charged to the customers or the end users. So, I just just to clarify but that's different. Um and then I did want to answer the question about the fund balance and why it might be showing such an increase as years go by and I think that has to do more with uh not having capital improvement dollars allocated into those future years that would be using fund balance.
So, it looks like the fund balance is very high but theoretically there should be capital improvement projects included in that estimate and that would if it if it was, then that fund balance would be lower based on that revenue. But that's what I think is why. But anyway, um I want to ask about uh because we're talking about a full renewal replacement over complete overhaul of the water treatment system.
And we have a 5-year capital plan for specifically renewal replacement and capital items. Are any of the capital items that we were looking at funding in the next 5 years actually going to be taken care of under this all-encompassing project?
So, when the finance director and myself met with Mr. Napoli, we reviewed the capital projects. We did remove or strike out a few of those items that duplicated their effort. So, as the previous question was asked pretty much the similar fashion, we have to go back through the capital item and we the capital list and we will pull out a few of those items that are duplicates that are in the 5-year schedule. There are not a lot of those. Um but, keep in mind that that 5-year capital is not just only the water plant. That is the entire distribution system and the wastewater collection system. So, there's a lot of projects on that list. Okay. So, that was one of the things I wanted to um I wanted to clarify. And then, the the rate estimate uh assumptions, when you calculated this, did you take into account because if we do this project, we will have a new water treatment facility, which might not need the same level of of renewal replacement repairs as a 40-year-old.
So, how did you assume capital projects?
And I know it encompasses the full, but how how did you assume that the cost of capital projects going forward to establish a rate?
We took the 5-year CIP, um and we didn't assume any increase of efficiencies or or or reductions in operating annual operating costs were related to the new water treatment plant. So, if those numbers are available, we could work them in to the forecast. Um if there's estimates of how, you know, um the renewal and replacement might you the city might see savings on on some of those items uh related to the new plant, we can work that into the forecast. But, there's it's kind of a status quo assumption of uh from that standpoint.
We we have the 5-year forecast, and then we took average amounts for renewal and replacement going forward based on that 5 years. Um average for renewal and replacement and then average for the water utility like the water and sewer utility fund because they fund a few projects as well that um there's two separate funds. There's the renewal and replacement fund and then the the operating fund. So, then that leads me to my next question, and that is we have been told based on the report that we just discussed that into the future our operating costs might be more expensive than they are now just because of the the nanofiltration technology or whatever technology might be put in place.
Was that um did you use existing uh operating expense to uh estimate these rates or did you incorporate in the anticipated expense or increase in operations? I'm glad you brought that up because there we're using the current operations expenses.
We didn't know about the the additional potential additional operating expenses in the future. I assume those wouldn't take place until after the water treatment plan is up and operational, so 2031, 2032. So, that could potentially impact those projected rate increases out there, but not in the order of magnitude that you're seeing for this debt service coverage.
I think [clears throat] more like instead of 3% out there, you'd probably see 4% or 5%, you know, similar to the ongoing kind of cost escalation increase that the city's used to for rates. Just because if all else remains equal, and if you're not doing this huge project, costs still increase year over year, chemicals, fuel, um salaries, etc. So, next time I come before you, I'll have that operating cost factored into the long-term projection in those outer years, and you might not see those 3% next time. It's more like 4% or 5%, so.
Okay, then my my last question really is about uh what happens if the So, we looked at the total of the 72 million.
Uh but I think anybody here can practically expect that construction doesn't ever come in at what you estimate. I mean, what would ha- what would need to happen with our rates?
I'm talking about process. So, let's say we've agreed to the project. We started with the line of credit, so we know what our initial rate increases would need to be. But then let's say the project final comes in at a an an end total of 95 million.
Is this something that the city is going to undertake each year to calculate because we would then know our debt service? So, then we would ba- basically it would just be among uh the city's duty to to calculate it or will it be um a somebody from outside the city coming in and actually doing a review saying here's what your rates need to be. Uh well, we'd be happy to help the city with that um of course and I think under the scenario if next year say do the line of credit scenario you know, we get an updated construction cost estimate next year the project is now $90 million instead of 72 and then you know that before the debt [snorts] was issued and before you know, you've undertook that those proceedings >> [clears throat] >> we would have to update these assumptions. There would like there would be a rate impact on that and we'd have to calibrate the model to show okay, now under this $90 million scenario, these are what the rates need to be in order to meet these debt service coverage targets.
And as long as that happens before you know, the debt is issued I don't really know what would happen after the debt is issued and then the construction costs go up. I guess you'd have to issue additional debt um in a separate borrowing but just let's just say next year we come back and the amount that's needed is much higher, we would update these rate increases so that we're giving a we'd be you know, required to give a sustainable plan uh to the bank uh in accordance with that debt issuance that this these are the city's projected utility rate revenues and they're sufficient to cover that debt service uh over the long-term period.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you Mr. Napier. I only have two questions, one for you and one for Mr. B. And first one for you, can you put scenario two slide back up?
Brian, can we get that?
Scenario two, there we go. This is the one that presupposes a line of credit for the first year. So, this is getting a little ahead of where we are now. We haven't even decided to do this, much less how to pay for it, but since you're here, um and I'm can't I don't know what the council when we get to that, I don't know what we'll ultimately say, but this is what's on my mind when I see this.
Um I will likely ask at if we when we get to making a real decision on this, what we can do to even lessen the initial impact if there's a possibility to lessen that even more and maybe go a 2-year line of credit or even a even a up to a 30 up to a 36-month line of credit.
I'm not a finance guy, but what I'm getting at is this is I I am very cognizant that there are people in our city that are feeling the pinch.
And remember, our water service area goes outside the city, too. So, it's not just our residents, it's the people in our service area.
It's easy to say, well, you know, it's only $7 or $8 a month, but it's really not because they're paying $4 a gallon for gas all of a sudden, right? They're they're paying more every time they go to Publix, they're paying more for their insurance, they're paying more for So, it's not just I mean, we're we're famous for that not we, but people are famous for saying, well, it's only five bucks a month, but it's really not only five bucks because it's five bucks here and 12 bucks here and 10 bucks here and then it's it's cumulative on people. And so, um the point I'm trying to make is I don't want to finance a car for 10 years, right? I wouldn't do that cuz you got a piece of junk car and you're still paying interest. But I would be willing to maybe not get the best debt terms in order to smooth this out for the ratepayers.
I I am concerned that there are a lot of people in our service area that are struggling.
And they they are at or below poverty level. They're not um they're not living on the golf course. These are people living in the apartments and the you know, and and uh so anyway, that'll that's a future question probably, but Yeah, I I I can't say anything now, but I'll definitely work with the financial advisor to see if there's any more flexibility >> too much cuz that's just my opinion talking to you. It's not the council's direction, so um my second question, Mr. B, and I I don't know if you'll have the answer to this.
We're throwing a lot of stuff at the wall tonight, so I don't expect you to have every answer, but when when and if it comes time to do this, this is a huge undertaking. I mean, a years-long construction project that just revolves from one thing to the next.
I I we can't take our eye off the ball for all the other stuff we have going on with storm drains and wastewater and water main replacements and sidewalks and I mean, we Public Works and Utilities has a ton of stuff going on right now. They're they're uh well, everybody does. All the departments are really working um double time right now.
How are we going to manage a construction job that's multiple years and is so detailed and technical. I mean, because I don't see any construction like we hiring an owner's agent or anything. I don't see any of money in there for that. So, what are we going to do?
That is a a good question. Um I had the same thought as we were going through it this evening. So, I we're going to have to um First of all, let me thank the public works utilities folks if I could. It took a lot to get to this point, a lot of work, and I appreciate the consultants work and both Mr. Napoli, Mr. Shelton, and CHA, and everybody.
But, I I got to thank our team first because they they did a a lot to to get here. So, thank them for that.
And there is a lot of work as you've recognized going forward. So, we're going to have we're going to have to have a conversation about that. Um and there may be I again I'm just reacting to your question at this point. It it may be that we have to account for some sort of a construction manager as part of the the overall package um to have somebody dedicated to just pursuing this project and the scale of this project going forward. Um but it's still a premature >> [laughter] >> to get there, but we'll we'll talk about that as we move move along.
Okay.
Mr. Napoli, thank you very much.
Mr. Talton, thank you very much also for for your work and obviously more to come on on this. So, Council, is there any new business or are there board reports? Council member Kravitz. On the On the previous topic, if I may. Sure. Um strongly in favor of getting a construction manager. I think that also just for the sake of assigning responsibility to one person so that it's clear who's accountable.
Uh that's really critical.
And we should think about how to structure that contract because if things don't work out well and we run into issues, we might need someone else. So, it shouldn't it should be clear from the onset when we're hiring that person. I think that it is for the execution of this project. It's not a permanent position, although it could become one possibly, but um that is a very good idea and I think that would be great. Um and and just on the other point, I would be a little hesitant about um pushing too much of the pain into the future for this loan because you know, uh a lot of the time when that kind of thing happens, it's uh younger people who end up paying burden.
Um if we preserve the rates for 3 or 4 years or 5 years or whatever it may be, all of that pain will be distributed towards the back end. So, that's people who are coming into Temple Terrace later or mostly younger people.
And people are just going to feel the pain later on and it'll be more pain than it could have been otherwise. So, I agree about maybe having a um tr- an intermediate period in the beginning because we won't need the full amount of money to start with anyway. It doesn't make sense to carry that debt service if we're not using the money for the project. But, um to to try and like preserve rates for an indefinite period of time or even even longer than it's strictly necessary. I'm very skeptical of that. I think we should start paying back the loan when we can. We should um we should try to make sure that the rates go up. I've seen this happen before. This year, for example, we all voted to take 500,000 out of a different funding source in order to keep utility rates lower.
And and you know, as we see, we we're up against bigger problems than that. So, I'm I'm I'm not a huge fan of subsidizing the utility rates.
Um I don't think it's the right thing to do because it it it doesn't convey honesty about what the system costs to the people who are using it.
And I think that's really important that we we make it transparent so that everyone can see what the rate is that they're paying. And [clears throat] it doesn't mean that people 3 or 4 years from now are going to end up paying more for their water so that people in the next 2 or 3 years could pay less.
So, I think spreading that pain out equally over the 30-year term of that loan, that's the whole point of bonding it out. So, that's my thought on that. That's all I got.
It does not mean a curtailed discussion.
I was just trying to get us out of here.
Basically, >> Yeah, and I'll try to get us out of here, too. But, I want to know what's the next step. I mean, we're going to have a town hall and then a period of time for our staff to work on some things and the consultants on some questions. And then are we going to have maybe a workshop on that or go right into a council meeting. We don't have to answer that tonight. It's just I would like to kind of know what the plan's going to be.
So, there are a lot of moving parts here. Um you know, you know me typically, I like to give you some pretty precise time frames and I I'm not able to right now.
What I can tell you is definitely next week on Tuesday at 6:00 in Lake Foot, we'll be doing the town hall.
Uh we're going to refine some of the presentations based on the input that we've gathered here tonight. Um Mr. Lapple will be there again, Mr. Telton and his team. Um and and so, we'll we'll go through uh what we presented. Um get get the public's input as well. I will be coming back to you at some point, whether it's a workshop or as part of a council agenda. I don't have that well defined just yet, but there will be some an action that I will probably need to get direction because we are putting together the budget for for next year.
So, if we're going to be doing things like lines of credit and things like that that I'm going to need some direction.
Um at the outside, at the very outside, [clears throat] it would be obviously we'd be talking about it at our July 6th budget workshop, but I think I'd I'd like to get that direction prior to that. It's just again, there's not a whole lot of time if you if you look at the calendar right now. Things are getting kind of squeezed. Um but uh once we get a better handle on this, obviously we'll be we'll let the council know immediately.
I have one I have one >> Member Fernandez. So, so my question or or request I mean, I'd really [clears throat] like to have a well delineated pros and cons.
I I am uh I'm very clear with the recommendation that if we move forward with a full renewal of our water treatment system, that it would be the nanofiltration technology, but I think we need a a very I I wouldn't say very precise, but a more precise layout of the full cost of execution of that and then the full cost and I know we can't get a yes or no from the city of Tampa or Hillsborough County about connecting to their systems and I'm not saying that I that I want us to look at the three scenarios. I do think that we could get an answer from Hillsborough County or city of and or city of Tampa mean do they even have the capacity to do to to connect to us without some sort of of Tampa Bay water agreement or Swiftmud or or you know I think that they would be able to say that and if they if they say absolutely not we don't have any capacity to do that then we know that those that that uh possibility is just not a and but if they say well we don't know we might have the capacity then I think we need to look at that scenario the full cost of what it would be our best estimate to connect and if today's water rates are $4 a per thousand gallons we know that that's not what that water rate would be because we know that they're looking at a hundred million dollar investment in their water treatment so we know that rate would be passed on I mean so yes we might be having to make a lot of assumptions and some extrapolation but I'd like to see those again if they say we don't know we might have some capacity the three scenarios a little more fleshed out so that we can um may and this and I'm not necessarily asking for this to be done at the town hall meeting but for me to make a decision I need to have that information.
So that's my request.
Further discussion?
Yes, if I may to your to your to your point, Councilmember Fernandez.
Councilmember Fernandez, um yeah, we need we need to they'll be able to say that we have this cur- this issue, this issue, this issue, this issue, and that could become part of our decision tree.
I agree with the with the mayor. They're not going to be able to give us a yes or no at this point, but they'll be able to say, "If I can get this, this, this, and this, then it it's it's something we can possibly do." But I think that'll be the the probably the best information that we could potentially guess in order for us to make a decision.
But I agree.
Okay.
Very good.
Um now, is there any new business or are there board reports, Council?
Wait.
Nobody?
>> old business anymore on the I'm sorry?
Oh, did we not have a old business item previously at one point, or is that missing from this agenda? We did.
Doesn't seem to be one there. Did you have any old business, Councilmember?
>> items of old business.
>> Okay, Councilmember. Um thank you.
[snorts] Uh What uh in any case, uh sorry. To the city manager, two questions. Um uh Joel Brown, TICO, anything happen there?
Uh so, I I did have conversations with with Mr. Brown. Um I apologize, I don't have the synopsis right in front of me, but I will provide it to the City Council this week in your update. Um second one was um Sunnyside Road, that community meeting, is that is there a status update on that?
The traffic calming project?
Mr. Warfield, are you are you prepared to answer that?
We'll we'll get back to you on that as well as to status of that. That's all I got. Thank you. Thank you, I appreciate it. Any other old business, new business, board reports?
Okay, city manager's report. I do not have anything.
City attorney's report. Uh nothing tonight. Council, any questions for Mr. B, or Mr. Mr. Ernie?
Mr. Mueller?
>> [laughter] >> If there are no questions for the city manager, city attorney, and nothing more to come before the council, we will stand adjourned.
>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Mhm.
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