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Riviera Beach outlines water‑plant timeline, funding efforts and utility upgrades
Summary
City officials told Singer Island residents that the city is upgrading its water system, pursuing federal and state financing, raising water fees this year and designing redundancy lines to reduce outage risk.
City officials told Singer Island residents that Riviera Beach is moving forward on major water‑system upgrades and financing plans to address long‑standing infrastructure issues.
Councilman Glenn Spertus and development staff said the city is replacing and upgrading its water treatment facilities and associated distribution lines. Spertus told the meeting the city expects the new water plant to be completed and commissioned after a multi‑stage schedule; he said commissioning takes roughly a year. “The old plant is being upgraded as we speak, and the water quality does meet or exceed all state and federal requirements,” Spertus said.
Staff reported active financing efforts: the city has submitted an application to the EPA’s WIFIA program and an application to the State Revolving Loan Fund; both applications were described by staff as seeking “over $100,000,000” each. Officials estimated the new plant’s construction cost in the meeting as “anywhere from $300 million to $400 million.” Sermons said the city is pursuing a mix of fee increases, development impact fees and grant/loan proceeds to cover costs.
Spertus told residents that water fees have been raised and that the city plans additional increases over the next five years, including a 30% increase scheduled for this October. He said the city has increased hookup and impact fees for current development projects to capture a portion of system upgrades. “We hope to recover a lot of that money,” he said.
Staff described a planned redundancy project to bring a new water and sewer pipe across local waterways to Singer Island to reduce the risk of service loss from a single damaged line. Sermons said the water/sewer‑line crossing is in design, has received required approvals from federal permitting authorities and is budgeted at about $15 million; the project is expected to take one to two years to complete. Sermons added the city plans to repair older lines so the system will have multiple supply routes.
Officials also addressed recent electrical power surges on the island that affected pumps and condominium systems; Spertus said the city contacted Florida Power & Light and that FPL had crews on the island to investigate. “We made it very clear that we’re not happy, and we expect them to do something about it,” he said.
Staff emphasized that upgrades will require phased construction—some road repaving will follow underground work—and that the city is tracking funding requests and project timelines. No final financing award or council adoption of a construction contract was announced at the meeting.
