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Highlands Today

Sebring Considers Taking Over Airport's Sewer, Water

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By JOE SEELIG

Highlands Today

Published: October 14, 2008

SEBRING - The city of Sebring staff is exploring acquiring the sewer and water systems belonging to the Sebring Airport Authority.

The city council will listen to staff recommendations whether to move ahead with the purchase, at its Oct. 21 meeting.

Even if the council accepts the recommendation, there will be two Chapter 180 public hearings to determine if the purchase is in the public's best interest.

The two systems service the Sebring Regional Airport and Industrial Park and the Sebring International Raceway.

"They want to get out of the water and sewer business and get about the business of running the airport, the industrial park and the races," said Bob Hoffman, assistant city administrator.

How would the city benefit from the sale?

First, the systems are worth $13 million if they were to be built today, according to Hoffman.

"The benefits to the city are the value of the assets," said Hoffman. "Most beneficial to us are the wells."

There are two 10-inch wells and two 12-inch wells, two of which go down about 800 feet and two go down about 1,300 feet into the aquifer, he added.

They are able to produce a pretty high rate of gallons per minute, he said. The city has five wells placed around Lake Jackson and DeSoto City.

Without the four additional wells, if three wells (in the city) were to fail, the city would be in trouble providing water to its own customers, he said.

The city presently has 15,000-plus water customers, Hoffman estimated.

"If there was catastrophic failure to any of those wells, we could pump back water into the system," he said.

The deal, as explained by Mike Willingham, executive director of the Sebring Airport Authority, is that the authority wants to pay off a Farmers Home Administration Rural Development bond issue. It still owes $1.158 million.

The city would buy the two systems for what the authority owes - minus money the authority has in its reserves for debt payment - leaving a net $699,708 that the city would pay.

What the city gains is the ability to expand its customer base as it connects its sewer system to the airport's sewer system, plus existing revenues.

"It allows us to expand water from U.S. 27 and east down U.S. 98. It allows us to provide water to an expanded industrial park," Hoffman said.
Willingham said Monday that part of the rationale for selling its sewer system is that the city would at some point demolish the wastewater treatment plant and hook in to the city's system.

The wastewater treatment plant has a capacity to treat about 90,000 gallons of wastewater per day and currently treats about 50 to 60 percent of that capacity depending on what is going on. For example, it obviously treats more during race week at SIR than during a normal week.

The timetable for that demolition remained open for discussion. It was expected the city would oversee operation of the existing sewer plant for a period of time.

At present the water and sewer systems are operated by a private contractor, Short Utilities, costing the airport authority about $1,000 per month.

The advantage of the deal for the airport is that the airport's sewer plant does not have a reclaimed water program and it has to spray its reuse water onto land, Willingham referred to as "spray-fields."

"Reclaimed water, sometimes called recycled water, is former wastewater (sewage) that has been treated to remove solids and certain impurities, and then allowed to recharge the aquifer rather than being discharged to surface water," according to Wikipedia.com.

"We will be able to recapture for development the property currently used for spray-fields," he said. "It's about 70 acres. And if we expanded the plant (for future development) that (land used for spray-fields) would grow proportionately."

However, demolishing the sewage plant at the airport and hooking up to the city's sewer system may take some time, perhaps 10 years or more, Hoffman added.

Joe Seelig can be contacted at (863) 386-5834 or jseelig@highlandstoday.com .

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