Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/27/2612159_utilities-seek-break-on-ocean.html#storylink=addthis#storylink=cpy

Four years ago, Florida ordered utilities in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties to phase out the decades-long practice of pumping some 300 million gallons a day of sewage into the Atlantic Ocean.

Two bills under consideration by the Legislature would push back the deadline for upgrading pollution treatment for the ocean outfalls by two years to 2020 and keep the pipelines flowing after a shutdown deadline of 2025 — but mainly as occasional relief valves.

South Florida utility managers contend the changes would result in big savings for customers and produce little environmental impact.

The bill would cap the annual flow at 5 percent of current volumes. That’s enough, utility managers say, to help them handle sporadic “peak flow” events when heavy storms can quickly triple the typical volume flowing from toilets and sinks. Building injections wells and treatment systems to handle those peaks could cost $1 billion-plus, they say.

“There is just a huge expenditure for that last 5 percent,’’ said, Doug Yoder, deputy director of the Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Department. “This is a very clear example of the point of diminishing returns.’’

Miami-Dade estimates it would cost the county $820 million to build injection wells, treatment systems and other projects to meet the current law.

Alan Garcia, director of Broward’s water and wastewater services, echoed the view, saying that the county would have to spend an estimated $300 million on deep wells and treatment to handle peak discharges.

“The reality is we might have only 20 or 30 days a year when we’d be using those wells,’’ Garcia said.

The City of Hollywood estimates the change would save it $142 million in construction costs.

Utilities have long defended the outfalls, saying the sewage was quickly diluted as currents carried it away from outfalls one to three miles offshore in 90 to 100 feet of water. But environmentalists and scuba divers, supported by many scientists, pushed state environmental regulators for years to halt the ocean dumping, arguing that the practice had tainted reefs, marine life and beaches.

The stuff that flows out of five remaining pipelines is screened of its foulest components but isn’t clean enough to sprinkle on a lawn and is rich in nutrients, nitrogen and phosphorus that can trigger explosions of damaging algae that have been found on Southeast Florida reefs.

The Department of Environmental Protection, in a 2008 report, didn’t make a direct link between sewage and reef damage but said the “weight of the evidence… calls into question the environmental acceptability.”

Efforts by the utilities to water down or delay deadlines in the last few years have stalled in the Legislature. The current proposals —a House version sponsored Reps. Erik Fresen, R-Miami, and Eddy Gonzalez, R-Hialeah, and identical Senate bill introduced by Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, R-Miami-Dade — have sailed through committees without opposition or criticism from environmental groups.

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection also supports the bill, said spokeswoman Dee Ann Miller. The changes would give utilities more flexibility, she said, reduce costs and ease rate hikes for customers.

The proposal would also give utilities two additional years — until 2020 — to install advanced treatment systems that were designed to reduce nutrient volumes until the outfalls would be closed in 2025. Both Miami-Dade and Broward are taking other measures to meet the nutrient standards to avoid having to install those expensive systems — diverting sewage flows or using other treatments to reduce nutrients.

“Nobody wanted to build expensive facilities that would not be needed after seven years,’’ said Miami-Dade’s Yoder.

The 5 percent limit on ocean dumping would apply on a yearly basis, meaning that on those days of high demand the pipes could flow to permitted capacity. That’s about 37 million gallons a day for Broward and 196 million a day for the two Miami-Dade pipelines.