Santa Rosa, Gulf Breeze, Holley-Navarre Water System at impasse over future of wastewater disposal

• The issue is whether the county and HNWS will hook up to GB's wastewater treatment plant or continue with plans to discharge effluent on 200 leased acres of Eglin property.

This story has been updated to correct a mistake that appeared in the original version. The story incorrectly stated when Holley-Navarre Water System is expected to reach capacity. HNWS is expected to reach capacity on Nov. 1, 2022.

With Santa Rosa County teetering on the brink of a treated wastewater disposal crisis as the county's population continues to surge, three entities charged with maintaining utilities and coming up with a plan for the future are divided over what that plan looks like, and how it's going to be executed. 

The South Santa Rosa Utility (operated by the city of Gulf Breeze), the Holley-Navarre Water System and Santa Rosa County (which operates a wastewater treatment plant on Navarre Beach) are at odds over coming up with a regional solution for treated wastewater disposal. 

'We're creeping forward:'Fire departments in Santa Rosa County are struggling to keep up with population growth

The core issue is whether the county and HNWS will hook up to Gulf Breeze's Tiger Point Wastewater Treatment Plant — which supplies reclaimed water to about 1,100 residential and commercial customers in Gulf Breeze, Midway and Navarre — or continue with plans to discharge effluent on 200 leased acres of Eglin Air Force Base property, a massive infrastructure undertaking that would cost about $30 million in RESTORE funding. 

“We had our first meeting last month, about two weeks ago, with Holley-Navarre Water System, South Santa Rosa Utility and the county,” said Santa Rosa County Administrator Dan Schebler. “It was the first time we’ve all sat in a room together since I’ve been with the county and I think that was productive and helpful.”

Holley-Navarre Water System has effluent, and Gulf Breeze needs more

Gulf Breeze wants HNWS and the county to hook up to its wastewater treatment plant at Tiger Point, where it creates reclaimed water that is removed of 99.99% of pathogens and then delivered to about 1,100 reclaimed water customers throughout Gulf Breeze and Navarre. The customers are charged a flat rate of $6 per month for reclaimed water, which is used for irrigation and lawn maintenance. 

The city, which has adequate effluent to supply its current customers, keeps reclaimed water in an elevated storage tank to supply customers when there is a drought or water shortage. But there is demand for more reclaimed water and the city can't currently meet that demand. 

“We get calls on a weekly basis from people who want to buy reclaimed water,” said Samantha Abell, the city manager for Gulf Breeze. 

Selling Tiger Point:The city of Gulf Breeze is considering selling Tiger Point Golf Course, again. Here's why:

HNWS, on the other hand, expects to reach capacity by Nov. 1, 2022. If it doesn't have solid infrastructure and a plan in place by then, it will have nowhere to dispose of its treated effluent, which could have dire environmental implications. 

Abell has been in discussions with HNWS Executive Director Rob Williamson about hooking up HNWS to the Tiger Point plant. HNWS has plenty of effluent, and Gulf Breeze needs more effluent to meet higher demand. Abell said the situation would be a "win-win" for south Santa Rosa County residents who want to hook up to cheap reclaimed water, and for HNWS, which needs a quick solution to solve its growing capacity crisis. 

Gulf Breeze is also planning an expansion of its current treatment facility to the Tiger Point Golf Course, where it will more than double its treatment capacity from 2 million gallons a day to 5 million gallons a day. The city also said it owns hundreds of acres of property on which it can dispose of effluent. 

The Eglin solution: 20 years in the making

But Williamson said hooking up HNWS to South Santa Rosa Utility would only be a win for Gulf Breeze, and that HNWS is moving forward with a memorandum of agreement with the county to discharge treated effluent on Eglin Air Force Base. 

Williamson said he wants the city of Gulf Breeze to pay for the approximately $2 million it would cost to put the infrastructure in place to connect HNWS to Tiger Point, something the city is unwilling to do since it says the benefit to HNWS is already great. Williamson also said Gulf Breeze doesn't have the capacity to handle the effluent disposal needs of HNWS.

“For Holley-Navarre to solve its reuse surplus disposal problem, we need more than a half-million gallon solution. Gulf Breeze only needs a half a million gallons a year to solve their current shortage,” Williamson said. “So the problem is that if Gulf Breeze wants us to spend $3 million, or $1.5 million, to connect with them and that would solve their problem, but it wouldn’t solve Holley-Navarre Water System’s problem.

“Holley-Navare is the largest water and wastewater treatment provider in the county, in one of the fastest growing ZIP codes in the sate, and we need a forever solution,” Williamson added. “Just like Gulf Breeze is looking out for their rate payers, we have to look out for our rate payers, and (the Eglin project) makes sense not just for today, but for the future.”   

For at least 20 years, Santa Rosa County has been going back and forth with the federal government over leasing land on Eglin Air Force Base to dispose of treated effluent. The county finally reached an agreement in August 2019 to lease 200 acres of land at Eglin for a total of $210,000 for a 25-year lease.

The project to get excess effluent to Eglin would essentially involve laying several miles of pipelines from various water treatment plants in the county to the Eglin property. The county would stop discharging its effluent from its Navarre Beach Wastewater Treatment Plant into the Santa Rosa Sound and send the effluent instead to the Eglin land. The county is working to secure RESTORE funding to pay for the project. 

Plan for the future:Santa Rosa County moves to stop discharging treated wastewater into the Santa Rosa Sound

“It’s the worst kept secret in Santa Rosa County that we jointly have been trying to pursue a long-term lease on Eglin to safely and environmentally friendly dispose of effluent,” said Williamson, who previously served as the Santa Rosa County District 4 Commissioner. “This boils down to a core issue, and that is that all three of us have an effluent disposal problem to resolve. The difference is that the county and Holley-Navarre have a surplus and Gulf Breeze has a deficit, so Gulf Breeze could solve their problem by connecting to Holley-Navarre.”

Abell maintained that Gulf Breeze doesn't have a "deficit" of effluent, only that they have adequate supply for current customers and cannot take on additional reclaimed water customers right now due to a lack of water supply. 

“We have new customers and demand we cannot meet, that is true,” she said. “But that’s not a deficit. That’s saying that there is more demand than there is supply, so that means that we cannot grow the reclaimed water, that doesn’t mean we have a deficit.”

Moving forward, a deep chasm emerges

All three entities appear to have reached a stalemate as negotiations continue. 

Williamson said the HNWS is meeting Monday night to hopefully come closer to a formalized agreement with the county that would make them financial partners in the project to get effluent to Eglin. 

“We’re going to have a meeting with our board to finalize the draft memorandum of agreement with Santa Rosa County in anticipation to have that agreement back to the county hopefully by the end of the month, to where we can move forward with this,” Williamson said.

Also on Monday night at its City Council meeting, Gulf Breeze plans to discuss a path forward with the county and HNWS if both entities are no longer willing to consider the Tiger Point plant as an option. In a memo to council members ahead of Monday's meeting, Abell implied that Williamson and HNWS might have financial motivations for not wanting to work into a reclaimed water system with Gulf Breeze.  

"The result of the December meeting and associated conversations is that Holley-Navarre Water Systems desires that the City fund 100% of the cost of the interconnect, and also pay HNWS for its effluent per gallon, or else HNWS will utilize RESTORE grant funding to construct an interconnect to Santa Rosa County and transport all of its effluent to Eglin property," Abell said in the memo.

"Additionally, the county plans to discharge its effluent north on Eglin property by way of a transmission line similarly funded by RESTORE grant funds and other state appropriations," the memo continued. "HNWS has taken the position that the City should pay HNWS for its effluent discharge, and then sell to reclaim water customers at a markup rate. HNWS makes its proposal as a win-win for utility business: If the City elects not to purchase reclaimed water from HNWS, during drought conditions should irrigation wells dry up (as occurred last summer), customers must use potable (drinking) water for irrigation."

The city is also slated to consider selling surplus property it owns for irrigation purposes that it won't need anymore if HNWS doesn't interconnect with Tiger Point. 

The Gulf Breeze City Council meets at 5:30 p.m. Monday at Gulf Breeze City Hall. 

The Holley-Navarre Water System Board of Directors meet at 5 p.m. Monday at 8574 Turkey Bluff Road in Navarre.

The Board of County Commissioners meets for its committee meeting at 8:30 a.m. Monday at its chambers, 6495 Caroline St. in Milton, though nothing currently on the agenda indicates the board will be discussing the memo of agreement or the ongoing negotiations. 

Annie Blanks can be reached at ablanks@pnj.com or 850-435-8632.