Mary Kate Leming's Posts (467)
Sort by
Oct 20, 2020 - Due to heavy rain, the South Central Regional Wastewater Treatment & Disposal Plant has requested the use of the city's outflow pipes. Therefore, reclaimed water will be temporarily unavailable to customers east of I -95. We apologize for the inconvenience.
— City of Delray Beach
A boat cruises down the Intracoastal Waterway through Briny Breezes during the 2018 Boynton Beach-Delray Beach holiday boat parade. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
By Jane Smith
The pandemic claimed another victim when the Boynton Beach-Delray Beach holiday boat parade was canceled on Oct. 13.
“How would we allow people to come out and safely watch the boat parade,” asked Michael Simon, executive director of the Boynton Beach Community Redevelopment Agency, at its monthly board meeting.
Since Covid-19 arrived on the scene in mid-March, no large events have been held in Palm Beach County. Covid-19 is a respiratory illness that can be fatal.
The Boynton Beach CRA had allocated $14,750 to host the event with holiday-decorated boats traveling down the Intracoastal Waterway into neighboring Delray Beach.
But on Sept. 30, Boynton Beach CRA staff received an email from the Delray Beach Parks and Recreation staff saying that the Delray Beach City Commission was not allocating any money to share in the costs of the 49th Annual Boynton Beach & Delray Beach Holiday Boat Parade.
Delray Beach has reimbursed the Boynton Beach CRA for 50% of the shared expenses related to event marketing, including T-shirts, participant prizes and the awards dinner in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
“I’m leaning toward not continuing this for now,” said CRA Vice Chairman Ty Penserga. “It’s hard to proceed without our partner.”
CRA Board Chairman Steven Grant asked whether the agency had money allocated to light up Ocean Avenue.
Last year, the holiday lighting ceremony was held at Dewey Park, Simon said. The CRA has about $6,000 to spend on holiday lighting of Ocean Avenue.
The city of Boynton Beach has already canceled its Holiday Parade.
Delray Beach also will not hold a Holiday Parade this December. It is putting up the 100-foot Christmas tree to put some life into the holiday season. But the city will not host a tree lighting ceremony or a Menorah lighting ceremony on the first night of Hanukkah, Dec. 10.
Grant also asked for a holiday raffle to promote the businesses in the Boynton Beach CRA district.
The holiday boat parade is something the Boynton Beach CRA does well, Grant said. “But we don’t want to be part of a super-spreading event.”
COVID-19: summary of cases and monitoring
Data through Mar 25, 2021 verified as of Mar 26, 2021 at 09:25 AM
Data in this report are provisional and subject to change.
Source: www.floridadisaster.org
Boca Raton (pop. 99,805): 21,699
Boynton Beach (pop. 78,679): 12,421
Briny Breezes (pop. 578): 10
Delray Beach (pop. 69,451): 9,605
Gulf Stream (pop. 985): 18
Highland Beach (pop. 3,916): 35
Hypoluxo (pop. 2,839): 152
Lantana (pop. 12,581): 1,201
Manalapan (pop. 466): 42
Ocean Ridge (pop. 1,956): 78
South Palm Beach (pop. 1,470): 29
Palm Beach County (total): 129,904 cases | 2,635 deaths
PBC population: 1,496,770
Bureau, US Census. “City and Town Population Totals: 2010-2019.” The United States Census Bureau, 21 May 2020
By Jane Smith
A long-awaited forensic study of the reclaimed water system in Delray Beach was not turned in as expected on Sept. 30. The new target date has not been set.
“We spoke on the phone, (there is) no written response,” wrote Missie Barletto, the city's public works director, responding to a public records request for emails or correspondence about the study.
In late April the city hired Public Utility Management Planning Services Inc. of Hollywood for $20,000 based on Barletto’s recommendation. She was then the department’s assistant director.
“The firm needed more time to review the documents,” city spokeswoman Gina Carter wrote in an Oct. 2 email.
The consulting firm is run by Fred Bloetscher, an associate dean at Florida Atlantic University's College of Engineering in Boca Raton. Bloetscher did not return phone calls or texts seeking comment on where his company was in the process of the forensic review.
The firm requested many documents that Delray Beach held on its more-than-a-decade-long reclaimed water program. The requests included: complete list of the backflow devices with columns of each address, photo, size and age; who did the work, whether an outside contractor was hired; who inspected the work; names of city employees involved in the project; and any emails between city staff and the contractors that may shed light on why were so many reclaimed water installations missing backflow preventers.
Public Utility Management “will attempt to engage in a conversation with the Florida Department of Health administrator for Palm Beach County to seek an acceptable solution,” Bloetscher wrote in the firm’s scope of services.
The Department of Health became involved on Jan. 2 when a South Ocean Boulevard resident called in to say she was not adequately informed of a cross-connection issue in December 2018. Cross connections happen when reclaimed water pipes are mistakenly connected to drinking water pipes.
That phone complaint led to the city shutting down its entire reclaimed water system on Feb. 4 to avoid a citywide boil water order. The city staff and outside contractors have visited each reclaimed water installation to verify that it has a backflow preventer device. Backflow preventers are a stopgap to prevent the drinking water from mixing with the reclaimed water.
The Department of Health sent the city a list of 13 possible violations in a July 1 warning letter. On July 22, city leaders including the new utilities director and the interim city manager met with Department of Health staff to review the possible violations and Delray Beach’s response.
The city is still waiting to hear from the state agency.
Reclaimed water is treated wastewater that is suitable only for lawn irrigation. Most residents of the barrier island, city parks, golf courses and master-planned communities west of the interstate use reclaimed water.
The lines were installed as part of a settlement that Delray Beach reached with state and federal regulators to stop sending raw sewage into the ocean. The city must stop its ocean discharges by the end of 2025.
By Jane Smith
Delray Beach told its reclaimed water customers living east of Interstate 95 that reclaimed water was not available starting Oct. 1.
The reason: heavy rains overnight on Sept. 30 forced the South Central Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant to use the city’s 36-inch outfall pipe to the Atlantic Ocean.
“We apologize for the inconvenience,” the city posted on Instagram.
Rains continued through the weekend, giving Delray Beach more than 5 inches of rain, according to South Florida Water Management District records.
“We will update this notice once the wastewater plant no longer has need of the outfall pipe and the reclaimed water becomes available again,” the city’s Instagram post read.
As of midday on Oct. 4, Delray Beach did not issue any updates.
The last known time that the wastewater treatment plant had to use the outfall pipe was about 19 months ago. That’s when the plant had an “unknown upset.”
The treatment plant stopped discharging into the ocean in April 2009. The plant can still discharge treated wastewater from heavy rains, from testing its pumps and from “plant upsets.”
Ocean outfall pipes can no longer be used by Dec. 31, 2025, according to state law.
By Rich Pollack
Municipalities in southern Palm Beach County that are holding virtual meetings can continue to do so for another 30 days, but officials should be prepared to convene in person come Nov. 1.
An executive order signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis on Sept. 30 gives local governments a month to plan a transition from Zoom and similar technologies to face-to-face meetings.
A memo from the governor’s communications director makes it clear that it is unlikely there will be additional extensions. “Local government bodies should prepare to meet in person as required by Florida law beginning Nov. 1, 2020,” Frank Piccolo Jr. wrote.
For area towns and cities already conducting in-person meetings or hybrid meetings with some officials attending in person and others electronically -– including Ocean Ridge –- the extension will have little impact.
“When Governor DeSantis no longer allows virtual meetings, all commissioners will be required to attend in-person, and the public who wishes to make public comment will also need to attend in-person or submit written comments to the town clerk prior to the meeting,” said Ocean Ridge Town Manager Tracey Stevens.
But Highland Beach, Manalapan, Boca Raton and Delray Beach will be making adjustments to ensure they adhere to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention social distancing guidelines.
Boca Raton, for example, is considering holding council meetings in a larger city-owned space to make social distancing easier, while Highland Beach and Manalapan are making adjustments to commission chambers, including adding dividers between commissioners and requiring masks.
“We’ll be taking reasonable precautions,” said Highland Beach Town Manager Marshall Labadie, adding that the town is considering having commissioners attend meetings in person but residents attend by Zoom. “We’re moving closer to how it used to be but with CDC guidelines, it could be a little tricky.”
In Boynton Beach, where a hybrid system is used with the mayor at a government building but commissioners accessing remotely, an emergency ordinance passed unanimously on Sept. 30 giving commissioners an opportunity to invoke home rule and continue holding virtual meetings until December.
That could change, however, according to City Manager Lori LaVerriere.
“Both our meetings in October will be hybrids and we'll be evaluating it on a monthly basis,” she said.
