By Larry Barszewski
A low pressure sewer system may be the best option for getting properties in Manalapan off septic tanks, but Mayor Keith Waters is skeptical residents will agree with the idea.
Consultants studying the town’s sewage needs called the system the “least expensive” and “least disruptive” of three options they analyzed. It would require each property to have a macerating pump, said Thomas Biggs of Mock Roos & Associates, the civil engineering firm contracted by the town in 2019 to do the study.
The pumps would grind the solids in the wastewater coming from homes and push it into sewer lines to flow to a regional treatment plant, Biggs said during an Aug. 10 online Zoom workshop on the subject.
But the pump installations may be opposed by property owners, Waters responded.
“There’s no prayer in all of our lifetimes that you’re going to get anywhere close to even half of the people who live in Manalapan to agree to drill holes in their front yard,” the mayor said. Half of the 20 to 40 residents he’s talked to about the issue “don’t even think we need the sewer system,” he said.
Commissioners will hold another workshop, tentatively scheduled for 3:30 p.m. Sept. 16 at Town Hall, to discuss which, if any, option would work for residents. Besides the low pressure system, Mock Roos also considered a gravity system and a vacuum system. The three options each had a price estimate exceeding $10 million.
The commission is looking at the options because 220 properties in town use septic tanks: 155 on Point Manalapan and 65 along State Road A1A. Only 93 properties are part of a gravity sewer system, from Town Hall to the north, which includes the town’s commercial properties.
The septic tanks pose an environmental threat because of their potential for leaching contaminants or algae-producing nutrients into groundwater or the Intracoastal Waterway. While there have been discussions at the state level about the need to eliminate septic tanks on barrier islands, Biggs said the state currently has no conversion requirement or deadline.
Septic tanks can also hurt property values, although that may be less of an issue in this exclusive town, which this year saw a home sell for $173 million. “That is a question that’s asked when people are coming in and inquiring about properties in the town. They always ask if we are on sewer,” Town Manager Linda Stumpf said.
Commissioner John Deese told the mayor he has heard from plenty of residents who would prefer a sewer system.
“I’ve probably spoken to at least 10 or 15 people and I have not had one person that said they don’t want to do it. They can’t believe that we don’t have sewer in our town,” Deese said.
Waters agreed many people favor sewers, but he said support for a new system quickly evaporates once details emerge of how properties will be impacted, potentially with lawns and landscaping having to be ripped up and replaced.
Stumpf said the town has been down this road before with residents. “There’ll be pushback,” she said. “We’ve done this over and over and over again. Here’s where we get. We get to this point where it’s the cost and that’s the end of the conversation. And then, a couple of years later, we do this again.”
Waters and Vice Mayor Stewart Satter said it was more than the cost that’s at issue.
“It’s the complications in addition to the cost,” Satter said.
Gravity sewer system
The guts for a gravity system are already in place on Point Manalapan south of the Audubon Causeway. Its developers installed a sewer line for a future system, passing the price on to the original purchasers of the homes there.
Consultants would have to test to make sure the pipes are usable, but Biggs said he has no reason to think they wouldn’t be. He said they could be part of any of the proposed options.
The gravity system along A1A at the north end of town connects to the Lake Worth Beach system and a pump station — also called a lift station — on A1A. Town Hall uses a macerating pump to push its wastewater to the pump station.
“That pump station has some issues, has some structural issues,” Biggs said. “It’s functioning, but it’s not ideal. That pump station has to be reconstructed as part of this program.”
Biggs said a gravity line system would be the most expensive and the most disruptive during construction. In part, it would require the creation of six additional lift stations throughout the town.
Vacuum collection system
Another option is a vacuum collection system, which is more common in the Florida Keys and used in only a couple of communities in Palm Beach County, Biggs said.
“You apply a vacuum to the collection sewers. Every house basically has a storage tank and then there’s a valve. As the storage tank fills up, the valve trips open and the vacuum sucks out the storage tank and on it goes,” Biggs said.
Each storage tank could be placed near an existing septic tank, Biggs said, but Waters saw the system as basically replacing one tank with another.
The system would also need large vacuum pumps at the library on Point Manalapan and somewhere along A1A, Biggs said. “The vacuum pump stations would require probably at least a 40-by-40-foot easement as well to build,” he said.
While the cost to operate the vacuum system would be lower than for a gravity system, Biggs said operating a vacuum system is more challenging. Stumpf called the vacuum system “a maintenance nightmare, very costly.”
“This is not the option we’re recommending at this point in time, but this is one of the options we had to develop in order to submit for a loan,” Biggs said.
Low pressure system
A low pressure system would have homes connecting to a small-diameter pipe in the roadway. Residents would each have a small pump station in place of their septic tank. The pumps would be similar to one that sits in front of Town Hall and each would cost about $9,000 installed, Biggs said.
Some properties along A1A already have pump stations connected to their septic tanks and those should be able to be used as part of a low pressure system, Biggs said. Other properties along A1A might need to have pumps installed even with a gravity system, if the wastewater lines on their properties would be lower than the main A1A sewer line.
“If it’s already macerating the waste, then it would be potentially usable for this,” Biggs said of the existing residential pumps. “You’re going to connect to this low pressure system and instead of pumping it into your tank, and then your tank feeding a soil absorption system to dispose of the water, you’re going to pump it into a small-diameter force main that’s in the road and then it’s going to carry it away to the regional facility.”
Cost scenarios
The consultants prepared cost scenarios for the systems, based on estimates of potential grants and the likely interest rates for any loans that may be needed.
A look at the present worth — the total cost of each alternative over time using today’s dollar values — showed the cost of a low pressure system at $10.3 million, a vacuum system at $10.9 million and a gravity system at $13.4 million.
The lifetime operation and maintenance costs were projected to be $3.3 million for a low pressure system, $3.4 million for a gravity one, and $3.9 million for a vacuum system.
The actual costs will depend in part on decisions the commission has not discussed. With a low pressure system, for instance, would the town or each property owner pay for purchasing and installing the macerating pumps?
When estimating how much grant money the town would receive, Waters said the town should plan as if it were getting nothing, because of the difficulties involved in the grant processes.
“Whether we even qualify to get those grants is another thing altogether,” Waters said. The town should assume it will have to cover the full amount needed, he said, “and hope that we can get that down with some grants in the future.”
Other things to consider
Another benefit to getting off septic tanks, Biggs said, is that every property no longer would need a drain field.
“That frees up for everybody the opportunity to do something else with that part of their property,” he said.
“That’s huge,” Satter said, “because if you want a tennis court or something, you can’t put it over your drain field.”
Some property owners may have recently installed septic systems and be against switching now because of those investments, but Stumpf said the town could consider not requiring immediate hook-up to a new town system.
“As far as everyone hooking in, the town could make a policy that when you’re having issues with your septic or you have to replace your septic, that’s when you would put a pump in,” she said of the low pressure system.
The planning is in its early stages; the idea is to have the eventual sewer system tie into the Lake Worth Beach wastewater treatment system, Stumpf said. To do that may entail the town’s purchasing capacity from another municipality, but those discussions have not begun yet, she said.
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