Lazaro Aleman
ECB Publishing, Inc.
Judging from the several sewer extension projects proposals of late, one might reasonably conclude that Monticello is spreading out in all directions, at least in terms of its services.
Consider: There is the now apparently dropped sewer extension line to Lloyd, the proposed one to Trulieve in Waukeenah, the potential upgrade of the U.S. 19 South sewer line, and latest, the Montivilla sewer extension.
In terms of this latest project, Monticello officials have actually known for several months of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP)’s award of a $1,615,000 grant for the extension. For various reasons, however, city officials had chosen not to act on the funding until last week.
Following a relatively brief discussion of the issue on Tuesday evening, June 7, the council narrowly voted 3-2 to proceed with the project before the FDEP decided to withdraw the funding.
Voting against the measure were Mayor Julie Conley and Councilman Troy Avera. Voting for going ahead with the project were council members George Evan, John Jones and Gloria Cox.
Among Avera’s several expressed concerns about the project, one was that the council had not voted to pursue the grant, nor had it been notified of the intent to pursue it until after the fact.
Another one was that neither the residents of Montivilla nor the county commissioner in whose district the subdivision is located had been contacted to determine if they even wanted city sewer service or would use it if provided.
More fundamentally, Avera said, he had a problem with providing city sewer service to an area that was contiguous to Monticello and yet refused to be annexed into the city.
He suggested that the city possibly use the grant funding to upgrade the pump station and other parts of the infrastructure but forego the extension to Montivilla.
But Debra Preble, with Kimley Horn (the city’s new consultant engineering firm), pointed out that the grant award was predicated on the removal of a specified amount of pollutants from the groundwater and surface water. The lift station and other upgrades of the system alone would not meet the requirement, she said.
She further warned that such a conversation with the FDEP might open doors that the city preferred to keep closed.
“Such a discussion can have repercussions other than just the loss of the grant,” she said, alluding to some issue apparently known to city officials but that she did not publicly identify at the meeting.
At the heart of the discussion was the perennial question of the system’s viability, in terms of how many households would voluntarily connect to it, or absent that, how to make them connect.
Montivilla, which is located just outside the city limit on the west side, consists of 36 homes. From an environmental point of view, the justification for the project is that extending sewer service there will remove about 10,800 gallons of wastewater that daily go into septic tanks and ultimately to the Wacissa River Basin and Springhead.
Instead, according to the grant application, the effluence would travel to the city’s wastewater treatment plant, eventually to be reused by Simpsons for watering its nursery stock.
Part of last week’s discussion entailed an explanation by Steve Wingate, formerly the city manager here, of the reason for his decision to seek the grant while he was serving as interim city manager until the city could hire a permanent replacement.
Counter to some councilmen’s assertions, Wingate said he had informed all the city officials via email of his intent to seek the grant prior to submitting the application. Plus, he said, he had given the council a status report on the grant on his last day on the job as interim manager, prior to the new city manager coming onboard.
As justification for his seeking the grant, Wingate cited several of the projects that the city had accomplished during his tenure as city manager that aimed to protect the environment, including the Simpsons Nursery water reuse program and construction of the advanced treatment plant.
Thus, when the FDEP grant had come available, he had seen it as an opportunity to further advance protection of the environment, he said.
It was his reasoning at the time, Wingate said, that given that the city already provided water to Montivilla, it was a natural extension to provide it also with sewer service, and at the same time upgrade the Hickory Street lift station, which dates from 2005 and is the city’s oldest.
The question also arose of who would play the bad guy and require connection to the sewer line if it should come to that, as county officials apparently lacked the political will to require mandatory connections?
It was the prevailing argument of the council members who favored proceeding with the project, particularly Evans, that the state already required that residences within a certain distance of water or sewer lines must connect if the service became available. It was further their argument that the city should proceed with the sewer extension in the interest of protecting the environment and let the state law do the rest.
Wingate and Preble further pointed out that the city already had easement in the subdivision by virtue of its water lines and furthermore that the treatment plant had the capacity to process the extra effluence.
The way it was left, the engineers were to proceed with a survey for designation of the needed easement and information was to be disseminated to the residents of the subdivision to let them know about the city’s intent. The FDEP was also to be notified of the city’s intent to accept the grant award.