Everything is terrible and we're all doomed.
At least, that was our takeaway this afternoon, as a powwow of state and local officials sifted through the ins, outs and what-have-yous surrounding the sewage discharges that are becoming somewhat routine every time there's a dramatic rain event.
Due to Hurricane Hermine, said Mary Yeargan, director of Florida Department of Environmental Protection's southwest division, about 248 million gallons of partially treated wastewater were dumped into Tampa Bay.
Officials estimate that the overwhelming majority of that water comprised rain and floodwaters that inundated multiple water treatment facilities throughout the Tampa Bay region, which were forced to skip steps in the wastewater treatment process as they went beyond the capacity they're capable of handling in a single day.
That total, 248 million gallons, elicited an audible gasp in the crowded auditorium at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, where Pinellas County's Legislative Delegation had gathered an emergency "fact-finding" meeting in order to figure out how the hell dumping tens of millions of gallons of sewage into the bay every time there's a sizable storm became a thing.
“We're all in this tank, proverbial tank together," said State Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, chair of the delegation. "We all need to find a solution together. It's not my purpose at this meeting… to point any fingers at anybody.”
The answer isn't easy, but it seems to have something to do with crumbling sewer pipes and inadequate treatment facilities.
In St. Petersburg, the epicenter of the shitstorm (ugh), the focus has been largely on why the city closed the Albert Whitted wastewater treatment plant in the spring of 2015 — about a year and a half before it had to — thereby greatly reducing the city's capacity to adequately treat its wastewater — or that of Gulfport, South Pasadena, Tierra Verde, St. Pete Beach, Treasure Island, etc. — when there's a big storm.
The city, per the request of DEP, had been talking about closing the facility since the 1990s.
Multiple studies were done to determine the capacity of the city's southwest facility to treat the excess water it would receive as a result of Albert Whitted's closure, St. Pete Mayor Kriseman told the delegation.
Latvala asked Kriseman about the latter of three studies, which came out in 2014, suggesting the southwest plant couldn't handle the excess wastewater during extreme weather events.
“That's the essence of what we're all wondering," he said. "That's the punchline."
Kriseman said the city has retained legal counsel to help determine the answer to that question as well.
“I never saw that report. City Council never saw that report so I'm asking the same question,” he said.
What the city does know: Even if the plant is currently being used in dramatic storm events as a storage facility for water to the most of its capacity, had it not been taken offline, had key pieces of equipment not been removed/sold, it could have reduced the amount of untreated wastewater that went into the bay.
But there's no way to quickly get that plant back online. Optimistic estimates, said St. Pete public works administrator Claude Tankersley, are about two years out; 2016's rainy season isn't even over yet. Worst-case scenario, it could be 2018 before the city and the bay see any relief.
There's also the question of how clean the water is that's getting dumped.
Yeargan told Tuesday's crowd exactly how wastewater from homes and businesses is processed; how potentially harmful substances are removed from the water multiple times over before the water is discharged into the bay, injected into a wastewater lair or the Floridan Aquifer or used as reclaimed water for lawns.
Much of the water discharged during and after Hermine, officials said, only missed a step or two before being prematurely discharged — it wasn't dechlorinated, for example, after it was treated with chlorine.
Kriseman insisted that fecal coliform tests suggest the untreated water doesn't pose any more of a threat than reclaimed water, which is used on lawns. But whistleblower Craven Askew, who last week revealed that the city was under-reporting its discharge levels to the public, told Tampa Bay Times reporter Charlie Frago the water quality may have been compromised more than city officials let on.
On Tuesday, Kriseman told those gathered that Askew's perspective is just one of 30 city employees in that same position, and that the city and public need to hear from the other 29 facility officials.
“We haven't had the opportunity to hear the voices of the other 29 operators," he said.
The public did not get the opportunity to speak at Tuesday's meeting. Instead, they will likely get a chance to voice their concerns at a later meeting of the legislative delegation.
This article appears in Sep 15-22, 2016.