http://www.sun-sentinel.com/health/fl-waste-outfall-broward-20101025,0,2211108.story

Reef Relief’s Paul Johnson worked hard to get this bill passed using rigorous science that demonstrated the negative impacts of sewage on coral reefs; the benefits of meeting fresh water demands alone, beyond the obvious issue of providing clean water for the area’s coral reefs, make it a win-win for any responsible community. What are they thinking?  DV

County says state law would double residents’ sewage bills

6:08 p.m. EDT, November 1. 2010

The pipe is one of six in Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties ordered closed by a 2008 state law, after a campaign by environmentalists who argued the pipes were polluting coral reefs and wasting fresh water.

The law, which set a deadline of 2025, requires wastewater authorities to improve treatment systems so the water can be used for purposes such as irrigating golf courses, watering lawns and recharging underground water supplies.

The Broward County Commission learned last month that it would cost about $800 million to construct such systems. Sewage bills for the pipe’s northern Broward users would more than double, with the average customer’s bill rising from $33.09 to $69.48.

Now the county is aiming for a way around the requirement — by a change in the law, a waiver or some other exemption.

Thomas Hutka, Broward’s public works director, said spending hundreds of millions to pump the water into the Floridan aquifer or to lay pipes to spray it on lawns “is not a cost-effective use of taxpayer funds.”

“The county will continue to work with the state as we have since the year 2007 so that we can continue using the ocean outfall, which we believe to be both cost-effective and environmentally sound,” Hutka said.

Alan Garcia, the county’s water and wastewater director, said the water already is 90 percent clean.

“If you take a jar out of our treatment plant it’s as clear as can be,” he said. “There are no solids in it. It’s not yellow or green.”

Ed Tichenor, director of Palm Beach County Reef Rescue, an environmental group that led the campaign to close the pipes, said environmental advocates would put up “quite a fight” to prevent Broward from keeping the pipe in service.

“Solids aren’t the problem,” Tichenor said. “It’s the nutrients, it’s the pharmaceuticals, it’s the pathogens and viruses that survive the initial treatment. And one reason they passed this legislation was a water shortage in southeast Florida, and southeast Florida doesn’t recycle water like the rest of the state.”

The pipe off Delray Beach shut down last year. Boca Raton expects to be reusing 100 percent of its water by 2015, using the pipeline only for seasonal overflows, said Chris Helfrich, the city’s utilities director. Hollywood and Miami-Dade County are exploring options, both saying the change would require a massive investment in new treatment systems.

The Broward-operated pipe, installed in the mid-1970s, discharges 32 million to 34 million gallons of treated sewage daily from Parkland, Pompano Beach, Deerfield Beach, Coral Springs, Tamarac, Oakland Park, Lauderhill, North Lauderdale, Coconut Creek, Lauderdale Lakes, part of unincorporated Broward and a small part of Fort Lauderdale.

Environmentalists have blamed this and other pipes for discharging nutrients such as ammonia that fertilize the growth of algae that smothers coral reefs. State legislators said the region can’t afford to dump that much fresh water at sea when the region is facing permanent water-use restrictions.

Broward Vice Mayor Sue Gunzburger said, “If there’s anything we can do to avoid meeting that standard by 2025,” Broward wants to do it.

“It’s a very expensive, unfunded mandate that I don’t think would make much difference when it comes to the ocean,” Gunzburger said. “The most telling fact is that most of the nutrients that go into the sea are not from the wastewater effluent but from storm water discharge.”

Although there have been several swimming advisories in Broward for high bacteria levels over the past year, environmental officials inspected the pipes and plants and found no malfunctions. Health officials say the more likely source of contamination was animal waste washed into the water from birds and other wildlife.

Broward Commissioner Kristin Jacobs, who is known as an environmentalist, said the state mandate was not based on sound science and the alternatives have their own environmental issues.

“It is not the intent of Broward County to slip one past the people,” said Jacobs. “What we’re looking for is a science-based solution.”

But she said she doubts the county will be allowed to keep using the outfall.

“There are politicians who used this in their brochure for their next election: ‘I shut off the ocean outfall.’ They’re going to come back and give us some grace to deal with this issue? I’m skeptical.”

David Fleshler can be reached at dfleshler@sunsentinel.com or 954-356-4535.