Lake Placid staff to seek master utility plan as $40 million wastewater work nears completion

Lake Placid officials said they will ask the town council next week to authorize a strategic utility master plan aimed at aligning water and wastewater capacity with future growth and grant opportunities.

Town Manager Charlotte Rodriguez said the plan, to be developed with assistance from a Florida Atlantic University consultant, will “evaluate our current and our future capacity needs” and help the town coordinate investments with regional partners while protecting ratepayers from avoidable emergency costs. Staff told the board they expect to obtain the master-plan work from the university team for under $19,000.

The discussion came during a broader briefing on a $40 million package of wastewater projects that includes a new 1,000,000-gallon-per-day treatment plant, lift stations and force mains. Finance staff reported about $16,000,000 of grant funds tied to the package had not yet been drawn down; project managers said roughly $1,000,000 remains as contingency depending on final change orders.

Kevin McCarthy, the town’s former utility director who has been advising staff, said the town’s three existing plants currently show about 300,000 gallons per day of excess capacity and recommended setting aside a baseline reserve from the new plant to support septic-to-sewer conversions. “The current excess capacity of the 3 plants we have is about 300,000 gallons,” McCarthy said, and he suggested reserving a portion of new-plant capacity so grant-funded hookups will have room to connect.

Staff also described recent conversations with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Rodriguez said the town has an email from Mitch Holmes at DEP indicating the agency encourages using plant capacity to keep a new facility operational and would not want capacity used to block growth.

The town introduced Jennifer Cooper as a new septic-to-sewer coordinator who will help implement conversion projects. Staff said Lake Serena is the first target area under the grant program, with roughly 30–50 potential connections; town presenters used an average household estimate of about 150 gallons per day when calculating ERUs and grant impacts.

Officials said other funding sources supplement the $40 million package, including about $600,000 and $570,000 grants for lift-station work and a State Revolving Fund loan that is nearing final payout. Staff stressed that while most of the $40 million has been allocated to plant construction and related infrastructure, several million remain available for final project elements and hookups.

Public comment from homeowner Deborah Whirley noted properties along Hibiscus and Lake Serena that did not hook into earlier mains and urged the town to prioritize connecting existing lakeside properties. “I would be a proponent of trying to get the septics off those lakes there before they go anymore into decline,” Whirley said.

Next steps: staff will present a formal request to the town council to initiate the strategic utility master plan and return to the board with a recommendation on whether to set a formal capacity-reservation policy for the new plant.