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June 28,2002

FIVE YEARS OF JEA WATER & SEWER WORK

This June marks five years since Mayor Delaney and the City Council transferred operation of the city’s water and wastewater utility to JEA with instructions to make it one of the best of any major metropolitan area of the country. So how’s it going?

Here are some facts and statistics that illustrate what JEA has accomplished in the first five years of managing Jacksonville City’s water and wastewater utility.

• 296 miles of gravity sewer lines rehabilitated or replaced ($172.4 million). There were an estimated 850 miles needing rehabilitation in June 1997.
• JEA is now delivering reclaimed water from wastewater reuse systems constructed at three regional sewer plants with much of piping system now in place.
• More than $80 million in major improvements to JEA’s regional wastewater treatment plants (improvements at Buckman WWT Plant alone totaled more than $25 million)
• JEA will decommission the sludge incinerators at Buckman Street Wastewater Treatment Plant this summer, eliminating associated air emissions. Sludge will be converted into a saleable fertilizer product instead.
• Voluntary strategic initiative to reduce nitrogen discharges to St. Johns River by 50 percent is well underway with construction of reclaimed water systems and biological nutrient removal systems at selected regional wastewater treatment plants.
• JEA has saved an estimated $85 million in sewer line replacement costs by adopting an innovative trenchless technology called pipe bursting rather than using the open trench methods used exclusively in the past. Open trench methods also take three times longer to complete and cause phenomenally more disruption to traffic, neighborhoods and customers.
• EPA Administrative Order issued to City was lifted in record time through successful implementation of aggressive sewer system infrastructure improvement program.
• Several water utilities were purchased by JEA to increase efficiencies, lower customer costs, and improve environmental performance of wastewater treatment and aquifer management in Northeast Florida(Utilities purchased were Ortega Utilities, Julington Creek Utility, Jacksonville Port Authority utility, Regency Utilities and United Water.)