ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Public Works officials in St. Petersburg say the Northeast Sewer Plant can now withstand a 15-foot storm surge.
The plant was shut down for the first time during Hurricane Helene’s 6.3 foot storm surge in 2024.
Mayor Ken Welch on Friday offered the first look at the $67 million upgrades, which were just completed last week.
The mayor says the northeast plant upgrades began in 2022. But after the 2024 storms, he put the project under St. Pete Agile Resilience (SPAR), which accelerated the timeline and added more improvements.
He said that with the four-year project complete, the sewer plant can now withstand a strong hurricane.
“It’s functionally complete in terms of hardening and elevation to be able to stand a storm up to 15 feet,” Welch said.
A year ago, the platform was just empty concrete pads with cables sticking out. Now, three generators are housed there, along with a big diesel storage tank.
Mayor Ken Welch showed off the completed project on Friday. (Spectrum News/Josh Rojas)
Welch says storm hardening the northeast plant was his very first SPAR project. Although it was expensive, Welch says it came in under budget.
“They’re telling me it came in about $3 million under the $70 million budget, even with the new enhancements But yes, this is, SPAR is $600 million. Our overall stormwater master plan is well north of $1 billion to do everything that we need to do. So this is a substantial part of that,” he said.
The 2024 shutdown caused one million gallons of sewage to be spilled into surrounding neighborhoods. Residents couldn’t flush their toilets or use any water for nearly a day.
“We had to shut this plant down, tell our community don’t flush your toilets, don’t do laundry. (It) impacted businesses. And I don’t want our community to ever have to face that again for that level of storm,” Welch said.
At that time, City Council Member Lisset Hanewicz was critical of the short notice the public got about the closure.
“When it shut down, half of my residents in District 4 were affected. And so I’m very excited that we now have a much more resilient facility,” Hanewicz said. “I think that this, this now, experience with both Helene and Milton gives the city an opportunity to provide better communications next time around.”
The mayor plans to ask the public to vote on a $600 million infrastructure bond this November.
He wants to use that money for stormwater improvements, other sewer upgrades and neighborhood infrastructure projects to mitigate against flooding.