Gulf Breeze City Manager Samantha Abell came on WCOA to explain the agreement the city’s utility reached with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection concerning the cross-connection that impacted about 340 homes in the Soundside Drive area.
FDEP investigated the environmental accident and developed a consent order that issued $3.2 million worth of fines to the city of Gulf Breeze, Midway Water and Brown Construction of Northwest Florida.
Abell said Brown Construction bears the responsibility for the cross-connection: “The residential utility contractor is the one who failed to notice a sewer aroma, who failed to notice when they tapped into the line there’s something called a ‘coupon’– it’s that part that comes off of the plastic when you drill into that PVC. There was a lack of sewage.”
She continued, “And by my own conversations with the contractor, those things are readily apparent to anyone who has ever tapped into a sewer line before. If you and I standing next to a sewer manhole, we’re going to know we’re standing next to a sewer manhole. There’s going to be an aroma.”
Instead of paying a $1 million fine to FDEP, the city has agreed to spend $1.5 million on capital improvements to the sewer system. Abell said the agreement doesn’t mean the city has accepted any responsibility for the mishap.
“The consent order itself says that this is not an admission of liability on behalf of the City of Gulf Breeze,” said the city manager. “But rather, Gulf Breeze wants to settle the matter of the penalty so that we can move forward in the best interest of our ratepayers. And that settlement recognizes that environmental law begins at the point that the cross-connection occurred, not at the time of potential contamination.”
She added. “So we do want to make sure that that is clear. That the city, in accepting the settlement offer, did not acknowledge liability. That the DEP, by their drafting of the consent order, it acknowledges that in the language.”
FDEP was open to letting the city use its fine to make capital improvements because the ratepayers would have to bear the cost of paying the fine.
“If the ratepayers were to absorb a million-dollar penalty, you would be looking at an 18% increase if that were to just have to be paid within one year,” said Abell. “And obviously, that would be very difficult to accomplish, especially for a utility in Santa Rosa County that’s experiencing unprecedented growth.”
The Gulf Breeze City Council agreed to pay 1.5 times the fine in capital improvement. The city manager said, “DEP has said that they will keep open channels of communication with us to provide a capital improvement schedule. So that if we put something forward, that is reasonable, we’re showing a progression from one year to the next, it would not have to be done immediately.”
Abell added, “Hopefully we can also leverage other funds such as grants. And again, make sure that there is minimal to no burden on our ratepayers.”
