Water reclamation plant goes online

PENSACOLA, Flordia (WALA) - It's a wastewater treatment plant where nothing goes to waste, and it's Emerald Coast Utility Authority's (ECUA) new pride and joy. Five years and nearly $320 million after breaking ground, ECUA's new Central Water Reclamation Facility has begun operating.

The new facility is off Chemstrand Road in Escambia County, and can handle all the wastewater sent its way. ECUA Executive Director Steve Sorrell said it's an upgrade that's been needed for a long time.

There will clearly be environmental benefits, and there will be some maintenance and cost savings," said Sorrell. "The plant downtown, the Main Street Wastewater Treatment Plant, better known as 'Old Stinky', has surface water discharge," he continued.

Hurricanes should be of no concern with this new facility. It's built to withstand whatever Mother Nature throws its way.

"The old plant, the Main Street plant downtown, is approximately seven feet above sea level. So you can imagine when a hurricane comes, it's going to get flooded, and it did," said Sorrell. "The new plant is a little over a hundred feet above sea level, so flooding is not going to be an issue."

It's also built to withstand 190 mile-per-hour winds.

The water that is processed at the plant will not be discharged back into the waterways. The quality of treated water is to the level required for unrestricted public exposure. It will be pumped directly to Gulf Power and International Paper for use in their industrial processes.

Nothing that comes into this new treatment facility will go to waste. Once the solids are separated out, they'll go to an elevator where they'll be dumped into trucks and sold as fertilizer.

ECUA hopes to have the public grand opening on December 2, 2010 and tours available soon after. Funding for the new plant came from five different sources. It's the largest public works project in the history of Escambia County.