City Moves Forward with Loan Application to Improve Aging Sewer System

The Gulfport City Council voted unanimously to allow the mayor to submit an application for a loan amount up to $1,000,000 to be used for a system wide evaluation.

"In a logical sense, it saves money by approaching it in this matter, rather than having a collapsed system . . . and all of that that goes with it, the pollution, disruption of traffic," Mayor Mike Yakes said.

During the meeting, Don Berryhill with Angie Brewer and Associates and Gulfport Public Works Director Don Sopak explained how the loan could benefit the city. Sopak says the is the first step in correcting the system is to conduct a Sanitary Sewer Evaluation Survey or SSES. That includes inspection, testing, identification and design. The primary goal of this loan is to conduct the survey and find the areas that are in need of repair. Sopak says groundwater and stormwater is getting into the system and in the end costing more to pump to the City of St. Petersburg for treatment.

"We had a rainfall at the beginning of March and there was a total of eight inches of rain in a 3-day period and the next month we ended up pumping $30,000 more dollars, paying $30,000 more dollars to treat it," Sopak said.

"We really haven't had a good dry year since the 08/09 fiscal year, in that time we spent about $686,500 treating sewage, that was a dry year.

Last year . . . we ended up pumping $937,600 to St. Petersburg, which is about $251,000 more than the previous year due to infiltration," Sopak said.

Sopak also stressed the importance of moving forward with improvements because he believes Gulfport will probably incur a 25% surcharge in 2017. "The rates are going to skyrocket on us."

He cited that the City of St. Pete Beach and City of Treasure Island are going through this currently and both contract through St. Petersburg for their wastewater treatment.

The loan would be provided through the State Revolving Loan Program through the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and have an anticipated interest at 2.35%. 

The City may use money from the Local Option Infrastructure Surtax (Penny for Pinellas) to help pay back the loan.