Why The Waste Water Fiasco Affects Everyone

Here is the scorecard so far. Cudjoe, Summerland, and Upper Sugarloaf gets about 600 grinder pumps, and Big Pine, Ramrod, Big and Little Torch Keys as well as lower Sugarloaf Key get almost 2,200 more. What do the rest of the FKAA sewer customers get – a million dollars a year in extra operating costs for at least forty years?

To date I have focused on Cudjoe Gardens problems, but the problem is even greater elsewhere.  Every densely populated subdivision on Big Pine, Ramrod, Big and Little Torch Keys as well as lower Sugarloaf Key will be affected and you don’t know it yet.

When we learned about the proposed mix of low pressure grinder pumps and gravity systems in January we were stunned.  Over the next five months, I did extensive research, analysis and modeling.  All of it showed that that the planned system made no sense; it was uneconomic in both the short and long term.  I finally estimated that it will cost all of the ratepayers in the FKAA system about $ 1 million per year in additional sewer fees.

The County claims they cannot not tell the FKAA what to do.  They are helpless.  They also said there were no funds available.  However,  the recently passed Infrastructure Sales Tax extension is slated to collect almost $ 200 million and its actual wording states ” … the proceeds used for the following projects: wastewater facilities and, only if those wastewater projects are completed or fully funded, recreation, etc….” .

Grinder pumps should be a last resort for moving sewage to a central facility.  Nationally there are about 100 million homes and about ½% use grinder pumps.  Many coastal communities will not even consider them because they do not do well in salt air or major storms.  FKAA proposes that 30% of the CRWS use grinder pumps.

While the residents of Cudjoe Key, have a problem with 300 grinders, the rest of you have an even bigger problem,

By Walter P. Drabinski
Sir Isaac Newton Coalition

“We believe in gravity because it is always there for us.”