TEMPLE TERRACE — Residents of Temple Terrace have waited more than a year for a plan to fix their drinking water. On May 19, they finally got one.
Spoiler: It’s going to be expensive.
The city’s two aging water treatment plants, rising PFAS concerns and an approaching federal deadline came to a head at City Hall as consultants laid out a sweeping $72.5 million overhaul that would remake how the city produces water for decades to come.
After more than two hours of technical explanation, some public comment and a slew of questions and concerns voiced by the city council, the council took no formal action, but agreed that something had to be done, and soon.
But what remains the question.
“You really can’t take the risk of operating a plant that’s near the end of its life when you’re dealing with a critical service,” CHA senior principal engineer Ed Talton said. “You wouldn’t send your firemen out in a 40-year-old fire truck.”
Talton described the city’s predicament as a “three-headed challenge” in response to elevated PFAS levels initially found in the water in March 2024.
The biggest challenge is the plants themselves. The Whiteway water treatment plant is more than 40 years old, while the Sunningdale facility has reached 30.
Both are nearing the end of their service lives, with electrical systems Talton called unsafe, basically motor control centers so outdated that replacement parts carry a one-year lead time.
The CHA plan would consolidate all treatment to a rehabilitated Whiteway site, while Sunningdale would be converted to a booster station.
The second challenge is the water quality. Temple Terrace’s water, like that of hundreds of utilities across the country, tested positive for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) — often called “forever chemicals” — at levels currently in the low parts per trillion but higher than new limits being imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) beginning in 2031.
“We have a little bit of PFAS that we got to get out,” Talton said. “It’s not a major catastrophe, it’s not a major health issue yet, but it’s something that the EPA said we have to address.”
The water is also classified as “very hard,” forcing many residents to rely on expensive home softening systems.
The water plant improvements “will make the water very high quality and easy to wash your clothes and take showers and things like that,” Talton added, “so that will pretty much take away the need for softeners, home softeners, as well.”
The third challenge is managing and disposing of what the treatment process leaves behind. Nanofiltration — the technology CHA recommends — works by pushing water through membranes that trap PFAS and calcium, softening the water and removing contamination simultaneously.
Talton said cheaper alternatives, including granular activated carbon (GAC) and ion exchange, failed to remove enough PFAS during testing at the city plants.
“We tried the lower cost things first, we wanted to get keep rates low, and they just didn’t work well enough,” Talton said. “Good thing we’ve got something that killed two birds with one stone.”
The process, however, creates another challenge: disposing of the waste left behind.
The potential cost of doing that will be $26 million for a deep injection well included in the proposal. The concentrated waste produced by nanofiltration would be disposed of by injecting it deep underground into porous geological formations.
According to Talton, deep injection wells are commonly used by nanofiltration systems along Florida’s coastline, including Clearwater and Vero Beach, while the City of Tampa is currently constructing one.
Some council members weren’t thrilled with that idea of PFAS disposal.
“Hopefully in the future something practical will come along that we don’t have to do that, because I’m really not crazy about the idea of injecting this,” said Mayor Andy Ross. “We’re trying to get this out of the environment, not move it.”
A second “exploratory” well is proposed as well, budgeted at roughly $7 million, and will be drilled deeper into the aquifer than the city’s existing wells to search for cleaner, potentially PFAS-free water. Talton said the city could likely secure grant funding to cover most of the cost, though he cautioned there were no guarantees the deeper water would be usable.
Ross said that was a financial risk perhaps not worth taking.
Council member Erik Kravets asked consultants for a more detailed comparison between the CHA plan and the costs of purchasing water from either the City of Tampa or Hillsborough County.
Talton said connecting to another utility would likely require between $30 million and $40 million in infrastructure improvements, making it the highest cost option according to their findings.
“They have to get the water from Tampa Bay Water to them, then over to you,” Talton said. “They have to remove PFAs, they have to renew their plant…nobody is getting plants for free.”
Other members also had questions about buying water from their neighbors. Council member James Chambers didn’t like the idea of the city not having control over its own water, while Ross expressed doubt Tampa or Hillsborough County would agree to such a request, or if they even have the capacity to serve the city.
Additionally, Temple Terrace would have no control over future rate hikes.
Rate consultant Peter Napoli of Stantec presented two primary options for Temple Terrace to pay for the overhaul, both involving rate increases for water and sewer customers.
Under the first, the city would issue a 30-year bond for $68 million in 2027, which would require a 15% rate increase that year, 10% in 2028 and 3% annually thereafter. For the average resident using 4,000 gallons, that adds up to a monthly bill jump from approximately $75 to $85 in the first year, or roughly $120 a year.
A second scenario uses a line of credit for the initial $8 million in project costs, delaying the full bond until 2028 and spreading the pain evenly with three consecutive years of 10% increases.
Even with the increases, consultants said Temple Terrace water rates would remain near or below the regional average.
City Manager Carlos Baia said the city will pursue state and federal grants to offset the costs to ratepayers.
While the council voiced their concerns at the meeting, it took no formal action. The public will have its say at a town hall meeting scheduled for May 26 at 6 p.m. at the Lightfoot Center.
Resident Chris Barquin, the only member of the public to speak at the city council meeting, brought the lengthy technical discussion to a more immediate concern.
“I think we need to look at some interim measures right now,” he said, “because people can’t be drinking this water, which is identified in their own report as possible cancer causing, for the next five years.”