Deltona details Fisher plant upgrades, Cortland wells, citywide meter replacement and SCADA modernization

City utilities staff updated the Deltona City Commission on June 9 about ongoing water and wastewater projects, meter replacements and control-system upgrades intended to improve treatment, reliability and monitoring.

Jim (staff member) outlined the Fisher wastewater-treatment improvements intended to reduce nitrogen and phosphorus loads and move the plant toward modern standards. He said the Fisher project is about 70% complete with a budget just over $1.3 million and with roughly $500,000 remaining; staff expect substantial completion by Aug. 30. Jim said a separate filter-rehab job at Fisher has been delayed by long lead times for parts (16 months) and carries an original budget of about $388,000 with approximately $312,000 remaining; that work should wrap around mid-July.

On the water side, staff briefed commissioners that the Cortland Water Plant project — including two wells sited on Roland to reduce withdrawals near the Blue Springs Basin — is approximately 92% complete on a budget of about $22.7 million and that final testing and bacteriological sampling were underway. Utilities staff said Lift Station No. 7 in the Waycross area is under construction (budget about $1.5 million) and will increase capacity while replacing an older master station; the contractor expects substantial completion in January 2026.

The commission heard a status report on the citywide meter-replacement program: staff have replaced nearly all of the planned 36,000 water meters and expect about 1,900 meters remaining, with replacement completion targeted for July 30. The next phase is an advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) network that will use about 16 towers to capture hourly meter reads; staff anticipate the AMI network up and running by Sept. 30 and a customer portal (phase 3) to follow. "It's gonna be a really big improvement," Glenn (City Manager) said of the customer portal that can alert customers to high usage by text or email.

Staff also described SCADA upgrades for lift stations and plants to move from polling intervals (previously up to 27 minutes) to real-time monitoring; the lift-station SCADA project is nearly complete, with just 3 stations left and a budget of about $822,000 (approx. $34,000 remaining). A broader SCADA replacement for water and wastewater plants is a larger, multi-year project budgeted at about $3.3 million with expected completion around June next year.

Commissioners asked about resilience (generators and bypass pumps), system interconnections to handle wet-weather flows and contingency plans for back-to-back storms. Staff said Fisher functioned during Hurricane Ian but that extreme rainfall can overwhelm the ability to discharge treated effluent quickly. Staff noted backup strategies with county disposal spots and plans for further upgrades, including advanced treatment and additional effluent disposal capacity.

Ending: Staff will continue work on Fisher upgrades, final testing at Cortland, finish the meter swap and advance AMI and SCADA deployments; additional budget and schedule details will return to commission as projects progress.