Winter Springs advances East/West wastewater plant designs; consultants say Ironbridge route would add time and cost

Winter Springs city staff and outside engineers on March 13 presented a plan to replace aging East and West wastewater reclamation plants and said pursuing a regional hookup at Ironbridge would add years, complexity and cost.

Utilities Director Clete Sonnier opened the City Commission workshop with an overview of the project and the condition of the existing plants. "It's my great privilege to present to you an update on the engineering design and construction phase services associated with the East and West wastewater reclamation facilities," Sonnier said, noting the plants were installed decades ago and have been kept functional by short-term repairs.

Carollo Engineers project director Scott Richards and Carollo project engineer Mira McKee described designs, funding steps and permitting. Richards said the current plants are "well beyond their useful life" and explained the new designs use multiple treatment trains and separated clarifiers to add redundancy.

Why it matters: Winter Springs operates two package-style plants that staff say are fragile when a single component fails, and the city is managing elevated regulatory and operational risk while the plants remain in service. City documents and consultants say replacing the plants—rather than routing all flow to a regional facility—keeps local reclaimed-water capacity and reduces some long-term dependencies on outside systems.

Key points from the presentation

- Existing facilities and need: Carollo and city staff told commissioners the East and West plants were installed as ringed-steel package plants several decades ago, that short-term repairs beginning in 2019 extended operations, but that the package-plant design leaves the city vulnerable when a single tank or aeration unit fails.

- Project scope and sizing: The current East-plant design is sized at about 1.6 million gallons per day (MGD); staff said present flow is roughly 1.1 MGD and the design leaves room to add capacity later. McKee said, "The East preliminary design is finalized as mentioned. We use that to apply for our DEP construction permit."

- Funding and schedule: The city secured an SRF design loan in 2022 and used ARPA funds for design work; the draft permits were submitted to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) in early 2025. Staff said they will apply…