HAINES CITY, Fla. — The state is ordering Haines City to fix its wastewater system to prevent spills.
June 30 is the deadline the Florida Department of Environmental Protection has given Haines City to have construction completed for the first of its newest RIB, or rapid infiltration basins.
“The RIBs are going to be the largest benefit that Haines City’s going to experience. It's going to give us somewhere to send the reclaim water. So, we don’t have to open up the valve and go into the existing ditch,” said James Keene, Haines City public services administrator.
Keene said this is one of four major wastewater improvement projects the FDEP is ordering the City to complete by the end of this year. The city has recently completed the construction of a three-million-gallon ground storage tank for its reclaimed water.
“The filtration that we installed and the quality of that water is going to be 100% better than it is today,” Keene said.
In the amended consent order, the FDEP stated Haines City is to "cease and desist all discharges" of treated wastewater from its Public Access RIB.
The state agency first issued a consent order in 2018 requiring Haines City to make improvements after unknown quantities of wastewater were discharged over a two-year period from March 2016 to 2018. The City did not report 96 incidents within 24 hours as mandated by state law.
Since then, city leaders have been working to update aging infrastructure. Keene said a new wastewater plant is in the works to keep up with Haines City’s rapid growth.
“We’re designing our plant to a 4.5 million gallon a day facility. So we’re staying just ahead of it,” Keene said.
