Charlotte County Commissioner Joe Tiseo issued a warning July 16 to developers who don’t pay everything upfront for utility hookups. Although expansion plans are already underway for water reclamation and wastewater treatment facilities, capacity might be reached before the new facilities are built.
“We only can guarantee what you pay for in advance,” he said during a county Utilities Department quarterly update meeting.
Tiseo said if a developer plans 300 units and pays for 50% of the units’ hookups and the estimated remaining capacity, or ERC, is reached, the developer only could build 150 units connected to utility service, since the developer didn’t pay for all the planned units in advance.
Tiseo was responding to a presentation made by county Superintendent of Facilities Jeremy Frost, showing different sections of the county and the timeline of when capacity is expected to be reached.
In the Burnt Store area of Punta Gorda, its water reclamation facility, or WRF, is expected to reach capacity in approximately 46 months, and to date the ERC is 1,549. After that, no other units can be hooked up to the utility until expansion is completed, which could take several years.
“We may not have 46 months,” Commissioner Bill Truex said.
Tiseo likened the situation to a game of musical chairs, asking “who’s going to be left without a seat?”
For the Burnt Store WRF, where the corridor has numerous planned developments under construction and a growing population, there are several options concerning the facility, the last of which is to do nothing. However, if developers can’t connect their homes to a sewer system, they plan to install septic tanks instead, county Utilities Operations Manager Ken Stecher said.
If that occurs, “at some point the [Department of Environmental Protection] won’t give us permits,” he said.
During his project overview, Stecher suggested making necessary repairs and some improvements to the Burnt Store facility, which would cost $10 million instead of more than $100 million for an expansion.
For the East Port WRF, capacity is expected to be reached in 86 months, and ERC is 7,347. Its $106,188,600 expansion is already underway.
In West Port, its WRF is expected to reach capacity in 70 months, with an ERC of 2,371. The expansion would cost $67 million.
Rotonda’s ERC is 6,446, and capacity is estimated to be reached in 233 months. An expansion of the facility is estimated to cost $67 million.
The county is undergoing unprecedented growth and there is a need to increase its wastewater treatment plans, reclamation facilities and to replace homes’ septic tanks and connect them to a sewer system.
The septic–to–sewer conversion is mandated by Florida House Bill 1379 from 2023, which requires septic systems for existing or new development with 50 or more lots with more than one septic system per acre by July 1, 2030.
The governing body must evaluate the feasibility of providing sewer service within a 10-year planning period, Stecher said.
“They’re going to be pushing sewer expansion whether we want it or not,” Tiseo said. He added, however, that the county’s own utility master plan is similar to what the state is mandating.
The county initiated the septic–to–sewer conversions years ago to improve water quality.
Aging septic tanks can leak, and during high rains they can leach nutrients into the ground and eventually into waterways.
Jones Edmunds Senior Consultant and Vice President Thomas Friedrich and engineer Christopher Makransky presented updates on the county’s sewer master plan in which septic tanks are currently in the midst of being converted to sewer hookups.
Makransky said there are three criteria that determine which areas will receive the conversions first: proximity to waterways, the age of the septic system and density of the septic systems’ area as required by HB 1379.
According to a Jones Edmunds study, the typical septic system service life is 25 years.
Makransky said to date, 2,680 conversions have been completed, 986 homes’ septic–to–sewer systems are in construction and 2,665 are in engineering, for a total of 6,331.
The county’s goal has been to connect 1,000 homes per year, but the average has been only 300 homes per year.
The fifth presentation at the meeting focused on Cape Haze, which has a potable water main replacement and system installation cost estimated at $7.42 million.
Dennis Croyle of Englewood-based Giffels-Webster Engineers Inc. told commissioners that in Cape Haze there are 277 parcels, of which 61 are vacant, 216 are unoccupied and five lots are already connected to Charlotte County Utilities.
Among the projects’ plans are replacing an aging system and asbestos mains, with construction going into the early part of 2027.
Croyle’s firm recommended the least costly low-pressure system.
But two Cape Haze residents were not happy with the county’s plan.
Both Percy Angelo and Rob Robbins of the Cape Haze Property Owners Association told the board during the public portion of the meeting that an alternate nitrogen-removing system would be far less expensive than the present plan being considered for their area. They presented commissioners with information on adopting the alternate option for removing nitrogen.
The county’s master utility plan to keep up with growth comes with a price tag of about $3 billion, which county Fiscal Services Manager Rick Arthur describedas “sticker shock.”
Instead of doing all the projects at one time, a five-tier system was designed, with Tier 1 consisting of prioritized projects, thus lowering the initial outlay, he told commissioners.
Projects where ground already is broken and contracts are signed will continue to move forward, but some projects will have to wait, Arthur said.
Committed projects total $186 million, and some of the larger projects include the East Port WRF expansion.
Uncommitted projects that have been put off for the immediate future include $481 million for Babcock Ranch water supply, $100 million for Burnt Store WRF expansion, $67 million for Rotonda WRF expansion, $40 million for Charlotte County Public Works relocation allocations, $1.5 billion for new capital improvement projects, $222 million for the West Port WRF expansion, $86 million for projects to be done over 20 years, $45 million for Lakeview/Midway septic to sewer conversions, $350 million for CIP projects and $110 million for other projects.
