The city opts for an in-kind project instead.
On February 24, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) sent a violation notice letter to the City of Plant City with the subject line “Department of Environmental Protection v. City of Plant City.” Such letters are sent when a sanitary sewer overflow (SSO) occurs, which the FDEP classifies as “unauthorized discharge.” The Plant City discharges happened during Hurricane Debby and Hurricane Milton.
“When Milton hit Plant City, it dumped 20 inches of rain in 24 hours, and had severe flooding impacts,” City Manager Bill McDaniel said at the June 23 city commission meeting. “The Florida Department of Environmental Protection has essentially cited all government operations that had flooding and overflows, and we are among that list.”
When the staff of a sewage treatment facility in Florida believe they have had an SSO, they are required to collect water quality samples from the water in question, then send them to the FDEP for analysis. FDEP testing of the surface water quality sampling for six Plant City discharges did not meet FDEP water quality standards. Five unauthorized discharges entered East Canal surface waters on August 5, October 10, and October 27. One discharge got into surface waters of Mill Creek on August 6. The total volume of the six discharges was 735,000 gallons.
Samples that do not pass water quality standards are violations of rules governing the minimum criteria for surface waters. FDEP offered two options to settle the SSO violations.
The first option for settlement was for the City of Plant City to pay $76,957 to FDEP ($74,694 in civil penalties, $2,013.00 in economic benefit, and $250.00 for FDEP expenses in handling the matter).
The second option was for Plant City to complete an in-kind project. The project has to be either for environmental enhancement, environmental restoration, or a capital improvement.
The criteria for the project is the cost must be, at minimum, one-and-a-half times the dollar amount of an offset of the civil penalty of option one. In this case, the math came out to be $115,060.50.
The FDEP offered the City of Plant City the chance to propose revisions to the settlement offer. The Utilities Department worked with City Attorney Kenneth Buchman to change the language of the final agreement. The revisions included adding Hurricanes Debbie and Milton as the cause of the SSOs, and the title of the agreement was changed from a violation notice to “Settlement Agreement.”
On May 2, the city emailed the FDEP that it would take the in-kind project option. The reason was the in-kind project will make use of the $76,957 for an already planned project that will improve water utilities, rather than just throwing it away through a fine. “We are looking at making improvements anyway, so it makes a whole lot of sense for us to do that rather than the smaller dollar,” Mayor Nate Kilton commented at the city commission meeting. Among the flood control and water quality improvement projects the city will consider to meet the settlement agreement are muck removal, wetland rehydration, and pond and channel plantings. The utilities project team, along with the city manager, will select the appropriate in-kind project. It has to be approved by the FDEP.
Within 120 days of the effective date of the settlement agreement, the city has to put together its intended project, submit it to FDEP, and get the FDEP approval. If the FDEP does not approve the project proposal, the City of Plant City is on the hook for the $74,694 in civil penalties and will have to pay within 30 days.
Within 180 days of obtaining FDEP approval for the in-kind proposal, the city has to have completed the project, unless the actual work of the project will take more than 180 days. Within 15 days of completing the in-kind project, the City of Plant City is required to notify the FDEP of the completion. The city will also request a verification letter back from the FDEP to file as proof the city has met all FDEP stipulations on these discharges and the issue is closed.
