The City of Apalachicola has been awarded 14 million dollars to upgrade and repair its wastewater treatment system.
The money is coming through the Florida Department of Environmental Protection Wastewater Grant Program and city manager Travis Wade said it is a “game changer”.
The money will allow the city to engineer and build a new Wastewater Plant Headworks and sequencing batch reactor which is the part of the system that screens out debris and other items that should not be in the wastewater.
The sequencing batch reactor currently used in the system was purchased over 25 years ago from the City of Tampa, and was supposed to be temporary, but is currently on its third lifespan.
The system also sits in a flood zone, and the new system will be moved about 100 yards away out of the flood zone.
Travis Wade said being able to replace both of these systems is hugely important for the city.
Besides modernizing the city's sewer treatment system, the project will also take the city out of the current consent order it is under from the the Department of Environmental Protection which will not only put the city in good graces with DEP, but also allow the city access to more state dollars in the future.
The search for the funding began under Apalachicola Mayor Kevin Begos and the city sought funding from multiple sources.
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