Largo plans deep-injection wells, seeks $26 million construction funding to stop surface discharge by 2032

Largo City staff on Jan. 14 told the City Commission the wastewater reclamation facility must stop discharging treated effluent to surface waters under Florida statute 403.064 and the Jan. 1, 2032 compliance deadline.

Jerry Walasinski, director of engineering services, told commissioners that “the deadline for compliance, to eliminate our surface water discharge is 01/01/2032. And I'll just say we're on track to meet that deadline.” He said the city has completed a disposal plan and has a project design under way that includes two deep injection wells, two monitoring wells and about 1,800 feet of new piping to connect the plant’s effluent pumps to the wells.

Why it matters: the plant currently discharges to retention ponds at Feather Sound that flow to Old Tampa Bay. Walasinski said the current permit limits the plant to no more than 19 tons of nitrogen per year to Tampa Bay and that the injection-well approach “will essentially take that as close to 0 as possible,” a benefit that helped secure a roughly $450,000 Tampa Bay Estuary Program grant already awarded to the project.

Project funding and timeline: staff…