The city of Temple Terrace’s Whiteway plant is more than 40 years old and has significant structural, electrical, and operational problems. Photo by Luiza Campos.
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The 40-year-old Whiteway plant has significant structural problems and PFAS contamination levels.
PFAS are a large group of synthetic chemicals that do not degrade easily in the environment and increase the risk of cancer and childhood obesity.
The city is now looking at two proposals to renovate and clean the water treatment infrastructure.
Both would cost over 70 million dollars.
City Manager Carlos Baia presented the estimated budget at a recent city council workshop.
“We had to do a lot of educated estimation here, so I just want you to understand that these numbers, by the time that you go a year or two years from now to actually go to construction, these numbers could look different,” Baia said.
One proposal looks at purchasing water from Hillsborough County.
But Temple Terrace would need to build nearly 3.2 miles of new pipes under busy roadways like I-75 to transport the water.
Construction could take five to six years and would cost roughly $93 million dollars.
The other proposal looks at building a nanofiltration system with a deep injection well at the city’s Whiteway plant.
It would cost about $73 million dollars and take four to five years to be completed.
James Chamber is the Vice Mayor of Temple Terrace’s City Council.
“So we’ve got a county option that is going to be as long or longer, cost more, and certainly the monthly rates would be more expensive to our residents to buy the water down the road,” Chamber said.
Council members leaned towards the city project, but there are still no final decisions on the matter.
Apart from the two long-term plans to renovate the Whiteway plant near the University of South Florida, Temple Terrace needs to decrease the PFAS contamination levels in its drinking water.
A new rule that goes into effect in 2031 from the Environmental Protection Agency requires these levels to be below 4 parts per trillion.
Think of four single drops of water inside an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
Temple Terrace wants to purchase a temporary carbon activated filtration system.
The council is in favor of buying the equipment instead of renting it for three to four years at about $2.5 million annually because it could save money.
It would also allow Temple Terrace to use the utility revenue bond to help pay for it.
The bond could not be used to rent the equipment.
However, as Temple Terrace’s water is hard, the temporary fix would need the filtration media to be replaced roughly every 45 days instead of the industry standard of six months.
Each replacement would cost about $750,000.
Therefore, it would cost nearly $5.5 million dollars to purchase the equipment and roughly another $15 million dollars on filter replacements.
The plant’s renovation and the temporary fix would require a 35% rate increase in the 2027 water utility.
Mayor Andy Ross said their water is still compliant to the EPA current requirements.
“If you are one of the people that are really sensitive to this, for a hundred bucks you can go buy a Brita filter,” Ross said. “But when you compare the cost of a filter, compared to adding 25 or 30 million dollars to this bill, it would be cheaper to buy everybody a filter.”
The council did not make any final decisions and is still evaluating the project’s budget.