'Toilet To Tap' Project Should Be Permanently Flushed, Says Council

TAMPA, FL — The Tampa City Council wants a controversial proposal to turn city of Tampa wastewater into drinking water permanently nixed.

City council members said the Purify Usable Resources for the Environment Project being forwarded by Tampa Mayor Jane Castor and city staff has been repeatedly placed on the city council's agenda despite the council telling staff it won't approve items related to PURE.

"When people talk about the divisiveness between the city council and the mayor's office, this is the project," said council member Bill Carlson. "This is the root of all the divisiveness. This is where we all went wrong with the administration because we opposed this project. It's better for the city that we end this. Nobody knows why this is being pushed forward and we just need to end it."

Carlson said, during last year's 2022-23 budget discussion, the council agreed that any items on the council's agenda related to PURE have to have the word "PURE" in them so the council knows they're related to the wastewater-to-drinking water plan and can reject them.

Nevertheless, he said undesignated items related to PURE continue to be added to the council's consent agenda without its knowledge.

"The one thing we do have control over is our agenda when an item comes before us," Carlson said. "If it's not flagged the way we want it, we automatically approve it because it was mislabeled. We need to strengthen those rules."

According to city staff, PURE is a series of studies and options the city is analyzing to address water and environmental concerns in Tampa, including how best to recycle up to 50 million gallons per day of reclaimed water from the city’s Howard F. Curren Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant. Proposals under consideration include discharged purified reclaimed water into Hillsborough Bay and the Hillsborough River Reservoir, the source of most of Tampa's drinking water.

Currently, that water is discharged into Hillsborough Bay, which city staff said is not the best use of reclaimed water and contributed to red tide.

“Cities across the world do have successful water reuse projects in existence," said Whit Remer, Tampa's sustainability and resilience officer, noting that the PURE push comes from a state mandate for municipalities to find new uses for reclaimed water. "It’s an incredibly useful source of reclaimed water.”

In 2021, the Florida Legislature passed Senate Bill 64, which requires the discharge of reclaimed water into surface water bodies, such as Hillsborough Bay, be reduced or eliminated by 2032.

However, the Tampa Bay Sierra Club and other environmental groups, as well as residents, have repeatedly rejected the PURE project.

“We have never thought that it was necessary to drink wastewater,” said Gary Gibbons, vice chair of the Tampa Bay Sierra Club.

And, although the wastewater would be purified, he said there are still traces of contaminants and nutrients that could negatively impact waterways.

Gibbons said the so-called "toilet to tap" issue has come before the city numerous times over the past two decades, and has been repeatedly rejected by environmentalists and residents.

Nevertheless, Carlson said the issue continues to come before the city council.

But when the city council requested the use of lobbying and legal resources to fight the state on the 2021 unfunded state mandate, Carlson said the city's administration turned the council down.

"We need to do everything we can to stop this," Carlson said. "It's absurd. If the city won't do it, I'm going to pay a lobbyist myself to stop it. This is not necessary. The public doesn't want it. It's not safe. It's experimental technology. This is an unnecessary project. All the excuses staff has given (for continuing the study) are not valid."

Despite the council's emphatic opposition to the PURE project, council member Guido Maniscalco said agenda items continue to come before the council. He said the issue frequently comes up at community meetings he attends where the overwhelming majority of residents say they don't want the project.

He said it isn't a matter of residents not wanting wastewater improvement projects. Maniscalco said he's never heard anything negative from residents about the city's Progressive Infrastructure Plan to Ensure Sustainability (PIPES) project, the largest public works project in the city's history intended to improve the city's 100-year-old water and wastewater infrastructure that serves nearly 720,000 people.

The $2.9 billion PIPES plan was passed by the Tampa City Council in September 2019 after nearly 10 years without a utility rate increase. PIPES establishes a schedule of gradual rate increases for water and wastewater services over a 20-year period. In addition, the city implemented a monthly charge for water and wastewater services, one of the last municipalities in Florida to implement a base charge.

"But I haven't heard anyone say anything positive about this (PURE)," Maniscalco said. "It's a highly, highly unpopular idea."

Hurtak "This is clearly something that people don't want," said council member Lynn Hurtak. "People don't want it and they don't see the need for it. We're not a state or city that's lacking in water."

"The idea of reusing wastewater for drinking water is the issue I hear about the most from the public," said council member Luis Viera.

In fact, the project has brought together members of the community who are usually on opposite sides of issues to oppose PURE, he said.

"I have never heard so resoundingly from the people of the city of Tampa on another issue," he said.

Carlson said that's not the only reason why it's so frustrating when the city's administration "sneaks" PURE items on the council agenda.

"Drinking potty water is the main issue, obviously, but there's also the fiscal impact," he said. "It's cost tens of millions of dollars just for the city to study it. And now the public does not trust the city on this issue. This project seems to have a political agenda that's being pushed through."

In February 2021, about $1.1 million was directed to PURE to research alternatives. The council subsequently rejected a proposal to spend another round of another $1 million to study the impact of PURE.

Council attorney Martin Shelby explained that, provided they meet legal notice, items can be placed on the council's agenda with the mayor's recommendation.

"It's something the council has no control over," Shelby said.

Then the council, which receives reams of background materials related to agenda items before each meeting, inadvertently adopts the items as part of the consent agenda, not realizing it has just given the mayor permission to execute a contract.

Under the city's charter, the mayor must receive the council's approval to execute a contract, which was done in the case of the PURE project, he said. Then, carrying out the contract becomes the function of city staff members.

"It came to the council and the council voted to execute it," Shelby said.

Nevertheless, he said, there are ways to correct the mistake. Although the city's budget is recommended by the mayor, the council is responsible for approving it. Therefore, the council can use its power of appropriation to kill the PURE project.

The council also adopts the city's five-year capital improvements plan, Shelby said. Therefore, the council can kill PURE by refusing to include it in the capital improvements plan. ]

"There is no one thing the city council can do today (at Thursday's council meeting) to put an end to the PURE project," said Shelby.

However, he said the project is scheduled to come back to the council in two weeks for an in-depth discussion.