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Melissa Thorn urges Lake Helen to ban county "toilet-to-tap" plan
Summary
Melissa Thorn, a Lake Helen resident and candidate for Volusia County District 1, urged the commission to adopt an ordinance opposing a Deltona-backed "toilet-to-tap" initiative she said includes $2.5 million in state funding and would inject treated sewage into the aquifer. She delivered a petition and asked the city to join other municipalities in saying no.
Melissa Thorn, who identified herself as a candidate for Volusia County District 1, used her public-comment time to ask Lake Helen to adopt an ordinance opposing a county-level "toilet-to-tap" initiative she said Deltona is advancing.
"They've got funding from Tallahassee already, dollars 2,500,000," Thorn said, and she told commissioners the program would "drill down into our aquifer and pump millions of gallons of treated sewage every single day into our aquifer." She urged the commission to take local action, saying Daytona had unanimously rejected the plan and that Lake Helen should be next.
Thorn cited regional water-quality problems and said the EPA has reported that "21% of our waters are compromised," connecting those conditions to visible ecological harms such as stressed aquatic grasses and starving manatees. She delivered a petition to city staff and offered copies to the city attorney or administrator.
The commission did not take immediate action on the petition during the segment recorded in the transcript; Thorn urged the city to consider an ordinance to prohibit the initiative locally and to substitute "City of Lake Helen" in the petition the presenter circulated. The transcript does not record any staff analysis or a motion by the commission on the petition during the meeting.
