Ned Wehler had to resort to hand watering when the recycled water system went down. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
By Jane Smith
Ned Wehler had to use a hose in early February to water his flowers and plants. The reclaimed water system was down again in Delray Beach.
“I went outside this morning and noticed my flowers were wilted,” Wehler said on Feb. 6. He lives on Ingraham Avenue on the barrier island.
After watering his flowers, Wehler went inside to check the city’s website. That’s when he saw a red banner strip across the top that read: “Reclaimed water is unavailable until further notice.”
It was the second failure within five weeks. Wehler said he was never notified either time until his flowers started to wilt. His sprinkler system uses reclaimed water.
Wehler and other barrier island residents from George Bush Boulevard south to Linton Boulevard are provided reclaimed water for their sprinkler systems. It was part of a settlement that Delray Beach reached with state and federal environmental regulators to stop sending wastewater into the ocean.
The wastewater treatment plant that serves Delray Beach sent its last raw sewage discharge into the ocean on April 1, 2009, according to Doug Levine, operations chief at the plant. The plant is still allowed to discharge treated wastewater from heavy rains, from testing its pumps and from “plant upsets.”
Delray Beach received state grants to hook up the residents to the reclaimed water system.
Marjorie Craig, Delray Beach’s utilities director, wrote in an email that providing reclaimed water for irrigation helps to reduce demands on the aquifer Delray Beach uses to provide drinking water to its residents. The reduced use of the aquifer helps to fend off saltwater intrusion.
Reclaimed water is treated wastewater, not suitable for drinking, cooking or bathing. Reusing that treated wastewater helps the city by reducing demand for drinking water, Craig wrote. In turn, that saves the city millions from seeking new water sources.
Failures may be linked
to work on treatment plant
The reclaimed water problem first occurred late last year when the South Central Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant needed the city’s outfall pipe to send treated wastewater out to the ocean. It’s the same pipe Delray Beach uses to supply reclaimed water to its residents.
When the treatment plant needs to use the pipe for wastewater discharges, reclaimed water becomes unavailable to customers in Delray Beach. That’s because the treated wastewater might not meet the standards for reclaimed water so it’s not used, Craig said.
The joint treatment plant processes wastewater from both Boynton Beach and Delray Beach. City commissioners from the two cities sit as the governing board of the plant.
Delray Beach agreed to provide the outfall pipe for dual purposes about 10 years ago because it was in place, already carried treated wastewater and was cheaper than adding another line that would become obsolete in six years.
By 2025, the six Southeast Florida cities will be required to stop regular ocean discharges under the Leah Schad Memorial Outfall Ocean Program, signed into state law in 2008. The program was named for Schad, considered the grande dame of Palm Beach County environmentalists, who died earlier that year.
Craig, who was not with the city when that dual-purpose decision was made, wrote via email that the treatment plant’s chemistry was knocked out of balance by an unknown cause in February. That’s technically called a “plant upset.”
The recent reclaimed water shutdowns mark the first times the treatment plant had to use the outfall pipe for more than two days in about 10 years, Craig wrote. The outfall pipe had been used for a few hours after heavy rains in the past, but this was the first multiday incident, Craig said.
She thinks the cause is likely from upgrades in progress at the $20 million treatment plant, which might have disrupted the chemical balance needed to treat wastewater. Delray Beach and Boynton Beach are sharing the upgrade cost.
The upgrades cover aerators, headworks where the wastewater first enters and other improvements, Craig said. “The treatment plant needs aerators to provide air to the bacteria, otherwise the bacteria die,” she said.
The major construction at the 40-year-old treatment plant began in October, Craig wrote. “This will continue over the next nine or so months and may take another three to six months afterwards of ensuring correct adjustments,” she wrote.
Long-term plan
includes Boynton Beach
That information, though, was not communicated to the city’s reclaimed water customers who are east of the interstate. The western area receives its reclaimed water from another pipe, Craig said.
That’s why Wehler and his neighbors became upset when the reclaimed water was not available for their automated irrigation systems.
The first failure happened on Dec. 28 and lasted until Jan. 4, according to the city. But Wehler said he noticed the system was down on Dec. 23. The second one started on Feb. 4 and lasted until Feb. 8.
“This is getting pretty frustrating, plus my recently transplanted plants are dying as are my flowers,” Wehler wrote Jan. 2 to the Beach Property Owners Association. “And I have been watering by hand daily to keep the plants healthy.”
Craig’s staff is trying to improve communications to the city’s reclaimed water users by determining the best way to reach them: emails, automated phone calls, automated text messages or some other method. “We have to figure that out,” she said.
The Utilities Department is working on a short-term fix for its reclaimed water system. “When we have final regulatory approval and a design, we will share more details,” Craig wrote. That is expected in 60 days.
For the longer term, the city has hired a consultant to look into storage of reclaimed water.
“The biggest challenge is the lack of available land for a storage tank or tanks,” Craig wrote. “The barrier island uses about 500,000 gallons per day of reclaimed water, typically overnight.”
Within the next two years, when Boynton Beach expands its reclaimed water service to the properties it serves on the barrier island, Craig wants to connect with that system to avoid shutdowns of the Delray Beach system if there’s a need to use the outfall pipe. In that case, Delray could then supply reclaimed water by connecting to the Boynton Beach system.
Meanwhile, the treatment plant has to file monthly reports on outfall discharges to the West Palm Beach office of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. January’s report was due Feb. 28.
The December report included two days — Dec. 28 and 29 — when the treatment plant exceeded its allowed fecal coliform limit by eight times. On Dec. 29, the discharge of treated wastewater had more than three times the allowable limit of solids.
The West Palm Beach office is investigating the discharges, wrote Jill Margolius, the office spokeswoman.
She wrote that the department’s first priority is to work with the treatment plant to correct the “plant upset,” then identify any corrective measures needed to prevent this issue from happening again.
“Once this is complete, the department will then evaluate this from a regulatory perspective,” Margolius wrote. “If ultimately there are any identified violations on the part of the treatment plant, the department will address them as appropriate.”
The two discharge days did not coincide with any cautionary notices about water quality at the municipal beach in Delray Beach. The county office of the state Department of Health tests the water quality at beach locations biweekly, according to its Beach Water Sampling webpage.
The department reports on the water quality. Then, each locale decides whether to take action, said Alexander Shaw, local Health Department spokesman.
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