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JEA Expects Completion of Ponte Vedra Project in June
Jacksonville, FL (April 14, 2005) - JEA is nearing completion on a $10 million project that will provide a vacuum sewer system in Ponte Vedra so that septic tanks can be phased out in the community.
The project involves nearly 700 homes in the Ponte Vedra Municipal Service District and is the largest project of its type in northeast Florida.
The most common type of sewage system uses gravity to collect the waste and then pump stations to keep it moving to the nearest treatment plant. Because of the high water table and flat typography near the ocean, St. Johns County chose the vacuum sewer technology, which uses a vacuum to collect the sewage and transfer it to the treatment plant.
JEA, through its prime contractor Callaway Contracting, will install about 45,000 feet of new sewer pipe from four to 10 inches in diameter throughout Ponte Vedra, along with pods that serve as holding tanks for waste. When the waste inside a pod reaches 10 gallons, a valve automatically opens to empty it into the sewage pipes.
Over the next 10 weeks, JEA and the contractor will be making final inspections and completing final landscaping and sod replacement as the job comes to a close.
St. Johns County is expected to begin repaving roads within the project area once the project is completed in June.
Last year, JEA completed construction of the Ponte Vedra Water Reclamation Facility, which treats wastewater from all of JEA's service territory east of the Intercoastal Waterway.
The average daily flow to the plant is about 450,000 gallons a day, which is about half of the design capacity. The additional customers are expected to add about 250,000 gallons per day when they are connected to the central sewer system. The treatment portion of the plant was originally sized to process one million gallons per day.
Treated wastewater (effluent) from the plant is reused for irrigation at the Ponte Vedra Inn and Resort.
JEA is the eighth largest community-owned electric utility in America, providing electric, water and sewer services to more than 750,000 accounts in Northeast Florida.
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