Cooper City staff outline $100M-plus water and wastewater overhaul; consultants to return with replacement schedule

Cooper City utilities staff on Monday gave the City Commission a detailed briefing on the city's water and wastewater systems, outlining aging equipment, operational limits set by permits and interlocal agreements, and the next steps for a multi-decade master plan that staff estimates could total "somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred and $20,000,000 in expenditures."

The presentation, led by Akano Bridal, the utilities director and city engineer, explained how raw water is drawn from the Biscayne Aquifer and treated through the city's nano-filtration plant, and described the wastewater collection and treatment process that ends with effluent either sent to an injection well or delivered to the City of Hollywood. "The raw water well pumps located 30 to 60 feet underground extract water from the aquifer," Bridal said.

The briefing said Cooper City has six Biscayne wells (two at the plant and others at separate addresses), storage tanks totaling about 3,500,000 gallons, roughly 145 miles of water distribution pipe and 91 miles of gravity wastewater mains. Daily finished-water average production is listed at 3,020,000 gallons; the plant has a permitted maximum of 4,500,000 gallons per day despite higher pumping capacity on paper. "We cannot pump more than that. That's one of the regulations that we have," Bridal said.

Why it matters: staff told commissioners the plant contains multiple components beyond their useful life and described a three-phase approach: (1) staff and operators explain existing systems (this briefing), (2) a consultant will present next week a prioritized list of components that need replacement over the next 20 years based on age, criticality and cost, and (3) the city's finance team will prepare a 25-year cash-flow and borrowing plan tied to those priorities. The city currently has about $20,000,000 in reserves for the utility, Bridal said, and will likely need to borrow in tranches. "We're going to be telling you more or less when those tranches are gonna have to happen in order to stay on schedule," he said.

Key technical and financial details from staff: Mike Stanton, utilities superintendent for field operations, said Cooper City is replacing roughly 12,000 failing water meters with iPerl Plus units through an agreement with Quorum Main; about 400 are already installed. Stanton said meter replacement should reduce apparent water loss and improve billing accuracy. Manny Cuevas, wastewater chief, described the plant's surge tank, headworks and bar screens and said centrifuge upgrades will raise biosolids solids concentration from about 12% to roughly 18'to 20%, reducing hauled sludge volumes.

Staff flagged several near-term operational vulnerabilities. The electrical system and switchgear supporting both water and wastewater operations are decades old and were repeatedly identified as a top reliability risk; consultants are recommending electrical upgrades as a first priority with an approximate order-of-magnitude cost staff cited as about $20,000,000. "You'll hear next week the number one concern in terms of reliability is the electrical system supporting the plant," a staff member told the commission.

Interlocal agreements and reclaimed water: staff described existing arrangements under which Cooper City sends effluent to Hollywood and purchases reclaimed-water credits from Miramar to meet state requirements. Manny Cuevas noted Hollywood has asked for more reclaimed water and staff said the city would seek to renegotiate the Hollywood agreement because "right now we're paying them, and they're getting effluent water from us for free." Commissioners asked whether building an in-city reclaimed-water distribution network would be cost-effective; staff said retrofitting for reclaimed distribution across individual homes would be prohibitively expensive and that targeting specific large users would be more feasible.

Permits, timelines and next steps: staff said the city's current water permit expires in 2030 and that permit renewal is a multi-year process. Ryan Webster, a consultant who joined the meeting remotely, warned that treating sources beyond the Biscayne Aquifer (for example, deeper brackish sources) would require full plant replacement because the current nano-filtration system cannot treat brackish water. Bridal and consultants will return next week with the consultant's prioritized component list (age, criticality, estimated cost and suggested replacement date). The finance team and CFO will then prepare a cash-flow plan and consider hiring a financial advisor to secure a credit rating before borrowing.

What the commission directed: commissioners asked staff to present immediate implementation needs at the next meeting, to begin the permit and bond-readiness work soon, and to include a public information program about utility needs and the financial plan. One commissioner said the city should not accept a long-term status quo and asked staff to present options that could make Cooper City an industry leader rather than a follower.

Open questions and dependencies: staff did not provide final, project-level cost estimates for individual components at this briefing; the consultant's prioritized replacement schedule and order-of-magnitude costs are expected next week. Staff also said decisions about borrowing amounts, tranche timing and rate adjustments will follow after the consultant's assessment and the finance team's modeling.

The commission scheduled a follow-up presentation for the consultant's prioritized recommendations and the utility's proposed near-term actions and financing approach.