Sewage Spill caused by ATT contractor

Lake Worth Beach sewage spill update: Five things to know and can you drink the water?

LAKE WORTH BEACH — Here is the latest on the health alert issued by the city of Lake Worth Beach after a contractor for AT&T damaged a 36-inch subregional wastewater force main on Florida Mango Road between Waterside Drive and the L-10 Canal on Tuesday.

A health alert, no swim advisory and no irrigation for a number of waterways are all still in effect as Lake Worth Beach Water Utilities crews and emergency contractors are working to repair the break.

Lake Worth Beach officials said they are in communication and are collaborating with the affected municipalities including Palm Springs, Lantana, Atlantis, Manalapan, South Palm Beach, Lake Clarke Shores and Palm Beach State College.

The Palm Beach Post

Worker's family sues for negligence - Lake Worth part of suit

There are a lot of horrible ways to die but falling through a corroded grate and drowning in everyone's waste?

That's what happened to Herminio Padillia Jr. "The suit, filed in Palm Beach Circuit Court Monday, asks for unspecified damages of more than $15,000 and also names as defendants the county, Lake Worth, Riviera Beach and Palm Beach, which participate in running the East Central Regional Water Reclamation Facility at 4375 Easley Dr. in western West Palm Beach, where the 48-year-old father of three died Jan. 17," says The Palm Beach Post

So, Lake Worth is not the only place around that shys away from good maintenance.

Setting Lake Worth's Budget for 2014

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Last night's meeting was, for the most part,  simply a formality to establish the millage and the budget for 2013/2014 that is required by law.

• Millage:  5.4945 (same as last year)

• Stormwater special assessment:  $75.60 per ERU (no change from last year)

• Refuse collection special assessment:  $245.76 (no change)

• Rates and charges for Electric:  Reduction in rates of 4.5% for residential and small commercial customers. Mayor Pam Triolo said, "Let's live within our means. We can go back and adjust if we have to."  Vice Mayor Scott Maxwell said, "That's a game change for us."  The Finance Director had a slide showing the comparisons between Lake Worth and FPL mentioning that FPL was just granted a rate increase of 5% beginning in January because of fuel projection costs whereas we do not have to go before a Public Service Commission for rates.

• Rates and charges for water: No increase

• Rates and charges for Local Sewer:  10% decrease

• Rates and charges for sub-regional sewer: $1.563 per 1000 gallons and $1.315 per 1000 gallons for the City of Palm Springs

Finance Director Carr gave a brief presentation to sum up the 6 Budget Workshop meetings stating that the city has 341 employees with 170 working for our utility. Three positions are being eliminated. Factors for Lake Worth 2020 program are in the budget and if passed, will increase water, local sewer and regional sewer charges.  Our non-controllable costs of pensions are:

Fire:  $2.8 million
Police:  $2.9 million
Employees:  $1.1 million

Palm Beach says "Screw You" Lake Worth

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The sewer pipe work is part of the town’s $41 million, multi-year accelerated capital improvements project, focused on infrastructure replacement and upgrades.

By completing this portion of the force-main replacement, the town anticipates saving about $300,000 per year, said Public Works Director Paul Brazil. That is the approximate amount the town expected to spend annually transporting waste water through the city of Lake Worth to the regional sewage-treatment plant in West Palm Beach.

Read more... at the Palm Beach Daily News

Lake Worth Commission "plays it safe" on Pelletizer Plant

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I wrote about the East Central Regional Wastewater Treatment Facility back in October that is situated on 360 acres and is located on Haverhill Road, adjacent to the Florida turnpike in West Palm Beach. There are four cities (Palm Beach, West Palm Beach, Riviera Beach and Lake Worth) plus Palm Beach County that oversee this plant that takes our wastewater, treats it and then processes it by removing the pollutants and debris. It is all disinfected before it is discharged.

I arrived at the end of the meeting last night at the point where the Lake Worth commission had already made a motion and were waiting to vote. It was a 4 to 1 decision with Commissioner Christopher McVoy dissenting. His argument was why would the commission vote for the more expensive option. Good Question. Why did it?

ECR's board is issuing bonds totaling $115 million to update its water treatment plant that will include a pelletizer plant that converts sludge into pellets that can be sold and used as fertilizer. By building their own pelletizer plant at a cost of $24 million, the ECR says it will save us $200,000 a year every year for twenty years from what the SWA charges and allow us to have control over costs. Not surprising, the SWA disagrees.

#1: Option to stay with Solid Waste Authority
Capital cost: $13,532,00
Net present operating costs: $56,360,000
Total present worth costs: $69,892,000

#2 Option to have onsite drying facility at the ECR
Capital costs: $24,140,000
Net present operating costs: $41,380,000
Total present worth costs: $65,520,000

Our Commission had plenty of time to get the information it needed to make an informed decision but instead complained about the lack of information. Even future sewage costs could have been explored but weren't. Why not? Once again, the Commission took the easy choice--invest in a capital project and save money and contain future costs or stay with what they had. This will be indicative of how they make their decision on our power provider. They did the same thing on the Greater Bay settlement--played it safe.

The difference is $4.3 million DOLLARS more to stay with SWA and that's what the four Lake Worth commissioners just did--voted to spend more of your money. I will have to listen to the audio to try and determine why they voted the way in which they did. Did they get opinions from the municipalities and why they were leaning the way they were? Did they bother to confer with the other partners to get a feel of it all?

I have to wonder if Lake Worth business owner and West Palm Beach Commissioner Shanon Materio had shared her hesitations/concerns with our majority commission. West Palm Beach had postponed its Monday meeting on this decision. Riviera Beach and Palm Beach were the only municipalities out of five (Palm Beach County, West Palm Beach, Lake Worth, Riviera Beach, and Palm Beach) that wanted to build the new plant.

City Manager of Lake Worth attends ECR meeting

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City Manager, Michael Bornstein, attended the ECR Board meeting in West Palm Beach and was recognized as the official representative of the City of Lake Worth.

According to Mr. Bornstein, the following actions were taken:

• The City of West Palm representative made a motion to reconsider the Pelletizer which he seconded.
• Another motion was made to table the vote until the December Board meeting.
• The Board directed the attorney to send a letter to the SWA to address various issues and to provide a firm proposal which will hopefully be reviewed by the ECR Board at the November 14^th meeting and will be available to the commission prior to its meeting.
•  Hazen and Sawyer, the consultant on the project, was authorized to work with lake Worth on presentations and meetings required to assist the commission in determining its position for the December East Central Regional Board meeting where the reconsideration vote will occur.

Michael Bornstein will be working to schedule a public meeting for the Commission to consider this issue and provide direction. Each commissioner will have one on one meetings with the consultants and others prior to the public meeting in order to get comfortable with the project and the issues involved.

Politics and Pellets

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Sludge at ECR

Situated on 360 acres is the East Central Regional Wastewater Treatment Facility located on Haverhill Road, adjacent to the Florida turnpike in West Palm Beach. There are four cities (Palm Beach, West Palm Beach, Riviera Beach and Lake Worth) plus Palm Beach County that oversee this plant that takes our wastewater, treats it and then processes it by removing the pollutants and debris. It is all disinfected before it is discharged.

Now the ECR's board is issuing bonds totaling $115 million to update its water treatment plant that will include a pelletizer plant that converts sludge into pellets that can be sold and used as fertilizer. By building their own pelletizer plant at a cost of $24 million, the ECR says it will save us $200,000 a year every year for twenty years from what the SWA charges and allow us to have control over costs. The SWA disagrees.

Palm Beach County owns 34%.
West Palm Beach controls 29%
Lake Worth has 18%
Riviera Beach with 11%
Palm Beach has 7%

West Palm Beach and one of its commissioners, Shanon Materio, want more answers and have yet committed to it with Riviera Beach and Palm Beach saying "yes." At last week's Lake Worth city commission meeting it was suggested that Lake Worth could be the swing vote on this $24 million decision as it takes 3 votes to proceed no matter the percentage owned. Can you imagine Lake Worth being a swing vote for anything?

As we never hear anything about the ECR,  it's time.

East Central Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant

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Yesterday I had the privilege of touring the ECR Plant located on Haverhill Road, West Palm Beach adjacent to the Florida Turnpike. The tour was conducted by the Executive Director Joseph Carlini along with our own Walt Smyser at Lake Worth Utilities. Those attending the tour were Commissioners Jo-Ann Golden, Scott Maxwell and Christopher McVoy. Robert Waples of our Planning & Zoning Board attended along with myself.

When we first arrived, we were immediately taken to the employee kitchen and treated to oj, coffee, donuts and bagels with cream cheese. That was a nice surprise as I still was not functioning that well due to the late city commission meeting of the night before and literally had to drag myself out of bed to make it on time.

This treatment facility, built around 1973-4, is situated on 360 acres, manned by 53 employees round the clock 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The operating budget is $21 million. Mr. Carlini is paid by West Palm Beach and is the only employee who is non-union. The rest are either members of the SEIU or PMSA Unions. He introduced us to four of his top management team, Jackie Michels, Senior Project Engineer and a former employee of Mock Roos; Tim Martin, Plant Superintendent; Don Long, Plant Superintendent; and Anthony Armeli, Maintenance Supervisor.

Mr. Carlini comes from Largo, Florida and worked there for about 19 years. He knew our City Manager Stanton very well saying she did a lot of great things for the City of Largo.

The water that we waste, which is about 150 gallons per person per day, is treated at this plant. Each residence has a pipe that is connected to a network of underground pipes and pump stations which carries the wastewater to this facility. They then process it and remove the pollutants and junk. It is all disinfected before it is discharged.

At the end of the tour, I was convinced that there was no one alive with more expertise than Mr. Carlini. He was interesting, informative and a most cordial host. Waste is not something that we normally think about and it is truly an involved process. It made me wonder how in the heck did we all manage 100 years ago? We all learned a lot.