Pinellas Celebrates Upgraded Water Treatment Facility

TARPON SPRINGS, FL – Nearly 1 million Pinellas County residents and visitors will receive clean drinking water thanks to an updated Pinellas County Utilities facility.

Pinellas County hosted a valve-turning ceremony on Thursday, July 20 to celebrate the official opening of the new S.K. Keller Drinking Water Treatment Plant and Operations Center. The facility’s service area stretches from Tarpon Springs to the north to Fort De Soto Park to the south.

The event featured the ceremonial turning of the valve and starting of the pumps for the new facilities by state and local officials, including Janet C. Long, the chair of the Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners.

“This new facility ensure safe, clean and reliable drinking water for Pinellas County Utilities customers, as well as our wholesale customers in Clearwater Pinellas Park, Largo, Safety Harbor and our beaches,” Long said.

The facility features four new booster pumps that deliver approximately 55 million gallons of potable water per day to more than 900,000 Pinellas County residents, plus visitors in its service area.

The Keller facility’s state-of-the-art operations control center features the latest in water supply technology and operations, featuring energy-saving machinery and centralized operations, maintenance, warehousing, laboratory and training facilities. The operations control center is housed in a Category 3 hurricane-rated building.

According to Pinellas County Utilities, the improvements at the Keller facility will provide improved water quality and reliability for customers for the next 40 years.

“Projects like these demonstrate the county’s investments in infrastructure to meet the current and future needs of the public and it is so rewarding to actually see these plans come to life in this modern operation.”

The new plant and operations center was funded fully by the Utilities Department Water Enterprise Fund, which reinvests enterprise funds in infrastructure projects that serve Pinellas County Utilities customers.

For more information, visit www.pinellascounty.org/utilities.

Images via Pinellas County Government Facebook page