Fort Lauderdale OKs new water plant

Facility’s hefty price tag will raise residents’ bills by extra $528 per year

FORT LAUDERDALE — By fall 2026, crystal-clear water from a new state-of-the-art water treatment plant should be streaming out of the tap — a welcome change for folks in Fort Lauderdale and beyond who’ve been served up yellow-hued water for decades.

But that perfectly clear water will come at a cost: $666 million, which comes to $1.4 billion over the course of a 30-year loan.

There is no federal bailout. Fort Lauderdale water customers will pay the tab.

In 10 years alone, the average water user will pay an extra $528 a year, with the bill rising 143% from $31 to $75 per month.

The controversial deal, approved by a divided commission in a 3-2 vote Tuesday night, paves the way for a public-private partnership known as a P3 to design, build, operate and maintain a new plant capable of producing 50 million gallons of water per day.

The new plant, dubbed Prospect Lake Clean Water Center, will rise next to the Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport north of Prospect Road and west of NW 31st Ave.

Fiveash, Fort Lauderdale’s main water plant, sits 4 miles to the east, on the west side of Interstate 95 between Commercial and Oakland Park Boulevards.

Built in 1954, Fiveash serves Fort Lauderdale and Port Everglades along with all or parts of Wilton Manors, Oakland Park, Tamarac, Davie, Lauderdale-by-the-Sea and tiny Sea Ranch Lakes.

‘Time is our enemy’

Critics of the P3 plan argue Fiveash can be saved, but the city’s experts say it’ s time to invest in a new plant that can deliver clear water and withstand a Category 5 hurricane.

The water that comes out of Fiveash has a yellow tint because the plant’s lime-softening treatment system can’t remove organic

material known as tannins from the underground water supply.

“The city has gone through an exhaustive process to arrive at this point,” City Manager Greg Chavarria told the commission Tuesday night. “We have commissioned major studies by national engineering firms. The results of those studies support a decision to abandon Fiveash treatment facilities.”

The city’s Infrastructure Task Force, which previously opposed the P3 project, changed course Monday and voted 8-1 to support it.

“Time is our enemy,” said task force member James LaBrie. “We’ve got to get something done. I’m terrified about a natural disaster [that might take out Fiveash].”

On Tuesday night, Vice Mayor Warren Sturman said he shared that concern.

Sturman joined Mayor Dean Trantalis and Commissioner Steve Glassman in approving the P3 deal. Commissioners Pamela Beasley-Pittman and John Herbst cast the two “no” votes.

Residents from the Lofts of Palm Aire Village pleaded with the commission to either rehab Fiveash or find a better spot for the new plant, saying it will ruin their view and hurt their property values.

“The new plant will be built within 700 feet of our houses,” said Michael Ray, one of 15 people who signed up to speak in opposition to the plan.

Ray and his neighbors griped about having to put up with four years of construction, and all the dust and noise that comes with it.

Vintage pipes need fixing

Neil Kolner, another resident of Palm Aire Village, questioned whether the water will still be crystal clear once it makes its way through rusty pipes.

“We do not need a Ph.D. in chemistry to know that crystal clear water is never going to come out of 60-year-old rusty corroded pipes,” Kolner said. “This decision will affect the city for a century. Let’s not pull the trigger before we know what we’re faced with.”

In 2021, Fort Lauderdale officials announced plans to spend $600 million over the next five years fixing and replacing Fort Lauderdale’s crumbling network of water and sewer pipes.

The city’s older pipes — made of either iron, steel, concrete or clay — are more susceptible to corrosion than the modern-day PVC pipe, experts say.

Fort Lauderdale has spent $34.5 million replacing its vintage water pipes since 2017, city officials say. They expect to spend another $54 million replacing water pipes over the next five years.

City officials told the South Florida Sun Sentinel they could not say how many more water pipes need replacing without doing extensive research.

Experts have said it will take an estimated $1.4 billion to replace and repair the city’s crumbling water and sewer pipes — and take about 20 years to do it.

‘A difficult decision’

Before the commission took its vote Tuesday night, Herbst said he’d heard from experts “on both sides of the equation” who disagree about whether the city would be better off rehabbing Fiveash for an estimated $300 million.

“The cost differential is always something of paramount importance to me,” Herbst said. “I struggle with this one. It’s a difficult decision.”

The plant itself will cost $485 million. The price jumps to $666 million when you add in the cost of installing $181 million in pipes that will connect the new plant to Fiveash and its distribution lines.

Under the deal, Fort Lauderdale will pick up the entire tab for the new pipes and pay 75% of the cost of the new plant, leaving the P3 to pay the remaining 25%.

The P3 partners IDE Technologies and Ridgewood will make money off the deal because there’s a profit margin built into the fixed fee they are charging the city for the plant itself along with the chemicals, equipment, electricity and personnel, Herbst told the Sun Sentinel.

Boyd Corbin, a Wilton Manors resident and water quality activist, criticized the commission for saying yes to what he calls a bad deal.

“It’s a billion-dollar heist,” he told the Sun Sentinel on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, he warned commissioners the city was not getting a new water treatment plant, but was instead getting a mammoth nanofiltration water filter that would waste 8 million gallons of water a day and come with astronomical electricity costs that will be paid by the plant’s water customers.

“This is a billion-dollar ripoff that will still give us green and yellow water due to old city pipes,” he said. “And a for-profit company will make decisions on water quality.”